Bring me to life
by Senkensha
Summary: Piccolo feels useless after the ordeal with Buu, and the world is at peace once more. Soon he's plagued by dreams. Who is this person calling for help, and why have they chosen him? (COMPLETE!)
1. Chapter 1

Piccolo sat on the clump of grass, under the large oak tree and caught his breath letting aching muscles relax, and enjoying the stiff breeze that held a hint of thunderstorms to come. Rain suited him fine, it served a dual purpose. It gave him a bath, and it gave him an opportunity to cool off after training.  
  
The rain will pose a problem to the wedding, he thought idly and with sadistic amusement; they'll probably get caught in mid-ceremony.  
  
The wedding; he'd been given an invitation of course, and had accepted the invitation graciously if not in his usual gruff manner. Piccolo recalled the look of pride and the boyish grin on his face as Gohan landed and roused his former master from his daily meditation.  
  
"Piccolo-san! Hey!" Gohans voice reminded his old teacher that the boy had indeed grown up. He sighed faintly, not really feeling social, but since it was Gohan, and he rarely saw him anymore, he decided to face the once boy, now turned man.  
  
"Hey Gohan, haven't seen you in a while." It was all Piccolo could think of to say. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wanted to retort with 'hey nice of you to recall that I'm still alive', but managed to keep his tongue in check.  
  
Gohan flushed a bit, as if he'd picked up that thought, and let his eyes slide away from Piccolos stern gaze. "Uh, yeah. Been pretty busy with school, graduation, and then with that whole Buu thing, and now Videl and all that. You know how moms been hounding me since graduating to settle down. So," Gohan grinned and offered a sealed envelope to the large Namek. "We're getting married."  
  
Holding out his hand Piccolo accepted the envelope, breaking the carefully licked seal with a claw, pulled out the sheet of paper and looked it over. The card itself had been carefully made from rice paper, very formal and the letters had been lovingly scribed by a steady hand, Chi- chi's, Piccolo randomly surmised. "Congratulations and thank you Gohan, I appreciate the invitation."  
  
It sounded remote, rehearsed and line-fed, but what else could he say? He was happy for Gohan, Videl and the boys' family, but in all honesty after Buu, after the near destruction of this world and Goku running off with the reincarnation of Buu, everyone had gone their own ways. He hadn't had much to say to anyone afterwards.  
  
"So, I uh guess we'll reserve you a spot?" Gohan sounded hopeful.  
  
Now it was Piccolos turn to avert his eyes. "I'm not sure kid- Gohan. You know how I feel about social functions, but I'll try, okay?"  
  
Gohans expression faltered just for a moment as he rubbed the back of his head and grinned a bit, the expression reminding the Namek a lot of Gohans father. "Hey, sure; I understand. Well, if you decide either way let mom or Krillin or someone know, okay?" He smiled faintly as his former teacher nodded once and tucked the invite into his sash belt.  
  
If truth had been told then, it had hurt Piccolo that Gohan had virtually forgotten him for several years, had ceased training, and hadn't bothered to at least make the pretense of communication. He didn't want to admit it, but Piccolo in a way felt abandoned, an infantile feeling to be sure, but he felt it all the same. But how else could he have felt?  
  
Goku had basically coerced (forced) him into training young Goten and Trunks by piling on the guilt, only to later on have the two boys become uncontrollable monsters after fusing, having nearly gotten them all killed with their juvenile bravado; it pissed Piccolo off that he'd been reduced to a glorified baby-sitter, and then forced to stand by and watch the children destroy everything they touched in to what he thought was a half- assed attempt at saving the planet. He'd thought Goku had really become a half wit to place the future of Earth in two children's hands, and thought so more, when the kids had failed because of their inexperience and combined egos as Gotenks.  
  
He realized he was brooding. He also realized, that in the course of fifteen years, he'd become useless, a second string fighter; sure he could still out match anyone at the Budokai tournaments, anyone human even that moron Satan, but when it came to the saiyajins...  
  
Piccolo had been out powered; he now ranked with Yamcha, Krillin and Tien; perhaps first in power in that category, but he'd long ago been surpassed by the saiyajins. Not that it bothered him; much.  
  
He shook his head, dispelling the unsettling thoughts. Gohan would be getting married now, he'd be beginning his life with Videl, and soon they'd have a child of their own. They'd grow old, their children would grow to adults and they would all eventually die, while he; he lived on, alone here in the woods, for probably a good three or four centuries more, depending on what threat came along next.  
  
"Tcha" Piccolo spat, crinkling his nose in disdain. "You're a fool, acting like a god damn human or worse yet a spurned lover." That thought didn't settle well in his stomach.  
  
Heading to the small falls that fed the small creek that ran through his glade, he crouched by the smooth waters, taking a moment to wash sweat off his face, neck and arms; the glimmer of sunlight glinting off the water caught his attention and drew it to his reflection.  
  
He wasn't bad looking as far as Nameks went, certainly he wasn't hard to look at, but he'd never thought about his appearance before, unless it had been drawn to his attention, which it frequently had by Vegeta and by tournament opponents. It'd never bothered him, who he looked anything but human, he wasn't ashamed of his appearance by any means, but neither did he gawk at his reflection like Narcissus.  
  
Which, he realized he was doing right now. Staring at his reflection like a dumb-struck child. Growling he flexed his ki, banishing the clothing that adorned his body and slide into the cold waters without so much as a splash, the water sliding over his body and head as he sank to the bottom of the pool. His ears picked up the muffled sounds of water cascading down, hitting the water and rocks below, the whooshing sound relaxing and soothing to his tense nerves.  
  
Why am I so god damn tense? It makes no sense for me to be acting this way! You're acting childish Piccolo, and just proving to yourself that you're being a jealous moron. He sniped quietly to himself, the agitation and restlessness that he felt fed upon itself, just making him that much more agitated. Snarling, expelling bubbles he surfaced so violently it sprayed water in all directions.  
  
He landed on grassy shore and came face to face with a sopping wet, still in his tuxedo Gohan. Piccolo stood there nearly chest to nose to the young demi-saiyajin. Gohan staring at Piccolo's bare chest and using one hand to mop hair away from his eyes; Piccolo stammered, completely caught unaware, he hadn't felt the saiyajins ki.  
  
"G- Gohan." Piccolo stammered uncertainly.  
  
"Piccolo-san, I." Gohan seemed as shocked as the Namek, and flushed quite profusely, spinning in an about face to keep from feeling like a pervert.  
  
Never before had Gohan seen his friend, mentor and near surrogate father naked before. It was an all together disturbing experience and he silently prayed to any god listening that he'd never see something like that again. "Ahem, ah, I just stopped by Piccolo to see. I mean say."  
  
Piccolo smirked faintly as his former student sputtered and gasped in near terror at his state of undress. He shook his head and summoned up the energy creating his usual outfit, without weighted cape and turban, just giving himself the soft shoes and jumpsuit to wear. He was embarrassed as well, never had be been caught with is pants down so to speak. "Don't be embarrassed Gohan, you're not five anymore, and I know you sure as hell have seen people naked before."  
  
"Yeah, but never, I mean you're different." A stammered response and a quick subject change followed quickly. "I just came to see why you didn't come." The young man trailed off uncertainly.  
  
Different? The words struck Piccolo like a slap, and he clenched his jaw in an attempt to keep from snapping at the kid. He cleared his throat swallowing a scathing retort, and brushed it off to Gohan being surprised. Instead he focused on the second half of the question. "I didn't feel it was my place to be there Gohan. Your mother would have had a conniption fit if I'd shown up. And I don't think Videl's family would have appreciated it either. Thank you for the concern Gohan, but really it just would have been awkward for me. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings kid."  
  
Gohan stood there feeling awkward and embarrassed, knowing that what Piccolo had said was true; that his mother would have thrown a fit if he'd shown up, and he knew that Videl's family would have been scared witless by the Nameks presence. The family had been traumatized enough by Vegeta and Goku's impromptu sparring session during the reception and dance. He scratched his temple and sighed faintly. "It's alright Piccolo, I understand. I guess I'd hoped that you'd be there."  
  
Piccolo shrugged and looked out at the water fall, the water tinged pink and red with the setting sun, the clouds looming to the west, rumbling ominously with a promise of a violent storm. "Can't be helped now, Gohan. Like I said, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but you know as well as I it was for the best. You know I'll always be there if you need me Gohan, but lets face it, you stopped needing me to come to your aid since you were ten."  
  
"I'll always need a friend Piccolo-san. I hope that even after all this, that we can still be friends and occasional sparring partners." Gohan smiled faintly, eyes slightly hopeful.  
  
Piccolo shook his head. "Gohan, you have your life now. Go live it. Stop trying to live your fathers' life; it's nearly destroyed your parents' marriage as it is, with your father running off to train Uub. Don't go looking for adventures, or sparring partners or training some hopeful future generation of earth's protectors. Go to your wife, live the life you've wanted to live Gohan, and be happy. I know you've never wanted to be a fighter; your soul was too pure to carry hatred that makes a fighter. You've had hatred forced on you since you were five, and have had to keep it up until just after Cell. Go be a family man Gohan. I'm proud of you and I'm proud that you've become someone I can respect and call a friend."  
  
Gohan watched Piccolo closely, unsure how to respond to such a statement. He wasn't sure if Piccolo was sending him away, or if he truly meant his words, and just wanted him to have as normal a life as possible. "I wish- I guess- I." He cleared his throat free of a lump forming and stared down at his feet. "You've been more of a father to me than my own had ever been Piccolo, you were the one I came to first when I had a problem, or needed help in some way. I love my father, I really do, and he's a great man, he's done a lot for this world and for everyone on it.. But even I know that he just never could cut it as a family man. He tried, sure, but even then he always fell short. I think mom had a lot to do with it, but I'm not going to talk about it. Thanks Piccolo, I know it's a lousy way to repay you for everything you've done for me, but all I can say is thank you and that no matter what, I hope that our friendship never changes, just because the world around us does."  
  
Powering up, Gohan lifted into the air, offering a faint smile to his mentor before flying off, not giving the Namek a chance to speak.  
  
Piccolo stood there, absorbing everything Gohan had told him, had admitted. Turning away from the rapidly departing Son, he made his way to the falls and sat in his usual meditative position, feeling drained and defeated somehow. He soon gave up all attempts at meditating and went into the cave he called home, and slept.  
The next few days were restless for the Namek; he roamed endlessly from one end of the woods to the other, and when that didn't help with the pent up energy he traveled the world, unseen and unheard. He couldn't figure out just what had changed within him, couldn't fathom why he suddenly couldn't sleep, concentrate or think straight.  
  
So what was bugging him? What was it that was making him chase the sun around the world? What was it that made him edgy, snappish, and feeling dangerous? He avoided people, cities on purpose as he traveled, knowing if he did happen upon the human population, he'd probably do something that'd get him into trouble.  
  
Piccolo had found himself on several occasions heading to the Lookout, but stopped himself about midway chastising him self for acting like an idiot; who would he talk to? Dende and him had nothing in common, other than Piccolo had the Kami, the former guardian fused within him, and Dende was the current guardian; that and Piccolo had Nail, some relative to Dende.  
  
He was lonely. It all boiled down to that. It was the fact that he had no one to talk to, no one to spar with, and he'd isolated himself quite nicely in his own private world. The other fighters were scared of him Yamcha and Krillin both; he and Vegeta had a long standing hatred for each other, stemming back from the battle with Frieza on Old Namek. Yes, they grudgingly respected one another in terms of battle prowess, but as for on a personal level, if things ever came down to him and Vegeta, he knew they'd tear each others throats out and not bother with any formalities.  
  
Giving up, he headed to the Lookout; if anything he could roam the halls and poke around long forgotten rooms of the guardians' tower. Who knew? Maybe he'd discover something that'd occupy his time, and attention. He'd considered going to the room of spirit and time to train, but then realized he'd already used his time, and couldn't enter again.  
  
Landing on the edge he was greeted by the ever present Mr. Popo and Dende. Dende blinked in mild surprise at the sudden unannounced arrival of the elder namek.  
  
"Piccolo, what brings you to the Lookout? Is everything alright?" Dende glanced over his shoulder worriedly.  
  
"Everything is fine Dende; I don't know why you'd ask, since you're supposed to be the guardian of this rock." Piccolo smirked faintly at the younger Namek, who flushed profusely at his comment.  
  
"You shouldn't be so cranky Piccolo," an irritated reply came from the younger namek. "I'm just surprised to see you here, its not often you show up here, and when someone usually does now, it's for help or something has gone wrong." Piccolo looked back over his shoulder and frowned a bit, Dende usually tolerated his crap, but apparently not today. He shrugged and headed towards the entrance not really thinking much of it. "I just came to see if there was anything in the rooms that would interest me. Would you mind if I stayed up here for a bit?"  
  
"I don't see why not Piccolo, its as much your lookout as it is mine, or anyone else's; you're welcome to any of the guest rooms; if anything I look forward to the company even if-" the young Namek's tone took on a hint of amusement, "- the company doesn't look forward to being with me."  
  
"I'd ask if you got your sense of humor from Kami kid, but I know for a fact he couldn't even be that much of a smart ass." Piccolo smirked and continued on his way down the hall. "I'll make myself scarce; I suppose if you need me you can find me by my energy signature."  
  
Dende nodded, saying nothing more to the elder namek and turned to focus his attention on Mr. Popo. "He's lonely. Maybe it'll do him some good to stay up here a bit and explore. I know that Gohan's sudden lack of caring for him has bothered him greatly; but he wouldn't ever admit it. We'll just let him be, and let him come to terms with his life."  
  
Mr. Popo nodded quietly looking at the entrance Piccolo had entered through. He wrung his hands a bit worriedly. "Of course Dende-sama, I'll accommodate him as best as I can, and I'll prepare a room for him immediately; is there anything I can do for you while I'm running errands?"  
  
Dende smiled at the faithful servant and shook his head. "Nothing for me thank you Mr. Popo. I'm fine for the moment; I think I'll head to my own rooms to think a few things over."  
  
Popo watched the guardian head to his own chambers before turning and heading off to prepare a room for their guest, making a list in his head as to what he remembered Piccolo would require for his personal quarters. 


	2. Bring me to life Pleas from beyond

Piccolo sat cross legged in front of the large glass wall, the sunlight warming his skin, heating it from the shivering chill of the massive library. He'd never known that the library existed, until about three weeks ago. Since then he'd not come out except for a few times when Dende or Popo had cajoled him out, or had out right threatened him to get sleep and some water. But, even they couldn't keep him from the library for long, and soon they'd find him sitting amidst a pile of books, some as old as the lookout itself, some of the pages brittle and Piccolo had often times no choice but to put the books back up on the shelf, unable to read it.  
  
Some of the books he'd discovered were written in dead, alien languages, and he briefly wondered just who the hell besides Kami had been a guardian not from this planet. He'd pondered asking Popo the history of the guardians; since accessing Kami's memories hadn't done much in the way of helping out. Kami didn't know who the previous guardians were anymore than Piccolo did. Kami had known the one before him, since the man had been the one Kami had taken the position from. Piccolo remembered the man being human, and ancient.  
  
Blinking slowly, he rubbed a stinging eye with a coarse knuckle and yawned. He'd been in here since dawn and hadn't really found anything of interest. So far it was old historical tomes on Earths history, some dating as far as back as to the supposed birth, life and execution of a man called Jesus. Pretty typical boring stuff, and he wrinkled his nose in disdain, Earth history bored him to a certain extent especially theology, coming to the conclusion that earthlings really had no clue as to why they were there, only that they were and that whoever had the better idea as to why they were seemed to be good enough explanation to the rest of the sheep. He'd met real gods, had fought along side some of them and had the opportunity to speak at length with more than one.  
  
Standing, he stretched and let stiff joints loosen up and picked up the pile of books he'd accumulated and headed back to the shelves that lined wall, not bothering to use the ladders provided for those with non-flight capabilities; hovering he placed them back onto the shelf, not really caring if they went back in the order he'd found them. Why not? I'm probably the only one that's been in this library since before Kami, and from what I've gotten from his memories, he didn't come in here too often himself.  
  
Exiting the library, he faintly heard voices from outside, Dende's tenor voice, and a definite female voice interspersed with an occasional male voice joining in. He picked up that it was Gohan and Videl; and nearly turned back to go into the library before he was caught.  
  
"Piccolo!" Gohan called out as he sensed his former teachers Ki. "Piccolo, hey we came to see you!"  
  
Piccolo sighed softly and squared his shoulders. He really didn't feel like seeing anyone, particularly Gohan, but may as well make the best of it, he thought. "Hey Gohan, Videl, its nice to see you both."  
  
Gohan beamed at Piccolo as he slipped an arm around Videl. "We came to tell you and Dende the good news; you're both the first to actually know, even before our parents."  
  
"Well out with it." Piccolo glanced at Dende, who frowned at the older namek's attitude.  
  
Videl blinked slowly, her smile faltering for a moment before looking to Gohan for reassurance. Gohan's own smile faltered just for a mere second before he perked back up again. "Well, we wanted you two to know that Videl and I are going to have a baby soon."  
  
Piccolo wasn't sure how to react. He'd always thought Gohan as a child, even after he'd realized the boy had grown into a man, there was just something too innocent about Gohan, something that made Piccolo think that Gohan would never have kids, or get married. He nodded again, unsure of what to say. "Congratulations. I hope all goes well with your family Gohan."  
  
Dende meanwhile grinned and clapped his friend on the back. "Congratulations Gohan! I'm glad that you're getting a family started! Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"  
  
Videl laughed shyly and shook her head; "No, it's far too early to tell what sex it will be. We're hoping for a boy though, or at least I am. I'm not sure what Gohan wants."  
  
Piccolo could hear Videl and Dende talking about children and the future; mean while his eyes locked on Gohans eyes, and both of them stared at each other in what almost seemed like silent challenge.  
  
Piccolo broke eye contact first and turned away. "I'm sorry, I cannot stay longer Gohan, I have some things I need to attend to, and again I congratulate you on your news and wish you the best of luck."  
  
"Piccolo.. Wait, can't we talk for a minute?" Gohans hand reached out to grab for the older Namek's arm and stop him. "You know, play catch up? I've got some news that I thought you'd like, and maybe you know, sit and just chat?"  
  
Piccolo glanced to the pale hand on his arm and stopped, turning to look at his former student quietly. They were far enough away that Videl wouldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew that Dende still could easily pick up what conversation passed between them.  
  
"Please don't take offense at this Gohan. You've been a good student and a friend. But let's face it, we've gone our own ways, and perhaps its best left at that. You've grown up and to be honest, I've just lost touch with everyone else. I haven't seen you in over three or four years, except for the few brief meetings we've had, and well, you're a stranger to me Gohan." Piccolo's voice was low and steady, he was sure this was the right thing to do. "You know I'll always be there when there's a threat, especially if it was to you or your family, but its time all of us had time to ourselves and give each other the chance to become individuals."  
  
Gohan stood there, feeling awkward and childish again. He suddenly felt guilty for feeling like he'd been using Piccolo's friendship, and then leaving him when more important matters came up. He cleared his throat and spoke uncertainly; "Sure Piccolo, I understand. I mean, yeah. I guess its time for all of us to kind of normal for a while. I, I understand that you want space. So uh, take care and see you around huh?"  
  
Gohan didn't wait for an answer, he approached Videl, wrapping his arms around her and murmured that they needed to go. Dende glanced back at Piccolo uncertainly, and somewhat accusingly, but said nothing. Videl nodded and smiled, offering a small wave to Piccolo before the both of them disappeared over the edge of the look out.  
  
Piccolo watched them go with a remote expression on his face. He knew he'd hurt Gohan and on some personal, deep level, he wouldn't even admit to himself, he didn't care that he had hurt him. Piccolo knew that Gohan would get over it and move on. He knew Gohan had figured that the namek didn't want him near anymore, that he'd pestered the alien enough.  
  
But, what about Piccolo; he felt as if Gohan had turned away from him as well, and had felt that way for some time. He knew it was petty, childish and even bordering on stupid, but he couldn't help it.  
  
"Piccolo, maybe it's not my place to say so," Dende's voice shook him from his thoughts, "but maybe you could have been a little nicer to Gohan and Videl. I mean they did come all the way up here to see you."  
  
"They didn't come up here to see me, Dende. They came up here to see the both of us. I don't have to explain anything to you, Gohans happy and I'm happy for him. What more did you expect out of me? I wasn't going to scream and whoop and make an ass out of myself. If anything the last thing this damn mud ball needs is another saiyajin running around, causing a ruckus."  
  
Dende stood there, shocked at the words, but deep down not surprised to hear them come from Piccolo. He just shook his head unable to answer with nothing more than; "It's your decision Piccolo, and I'll respect whatever choice you make for yourself. After all, in the end it only affects you."  
  
Piccolo gave the guardian a look that either indicated he was about to hit him or say something they'd both regret, but he just sneered at the younger one for a moment before storming off to his rooms.  
  
Dende closed his eyes and let his shoulders slump a bit, he leaned heavily on the walking stick that Kami had left behind some years ago. He shook his head and murmured to no one in particular, "They say there's nothing worse than being lonely; but I think Piccolo's proved that theory wrong. There's nothing worse than being lonely, and knowing you're lonely, yet you continue to shove the people that cared about you away."  
  
Piccolo shut the door to his room and lay on the bed, feeling suddenly exhausted. He was irritated with Dende, and a little more than irritated at the fact that Dende had been right. He'd been an ass to Gohan and Videl both; but dammit what was he supposed to do? Gohan was a stranger to him now, and he'd never taken too kindly to strangers before, nor was he about to start. Piccolo fell asleep, although it was anything but restful. He dreamed.  
  
It couldn't see, they had blind folded it, and had bound its hands behind its back, the ankles bound in the same fashion; hands tightly gripped its arms and mid-section to the point to where it felt like it couldn't draw a proper breath. It snarled and snapped at anything that came close to its face, and more than once it had scored a good bite on a hand or two, fangs driving deep through bone and tissue. Its efforts were rewarded by blows to its head and body with batons, fists and more than a few feet. The creatures snarling and cursing at it in their language, shoving its face into the dirt as they attempted to put it into the transport, getting it ready to put into a holding cell that was bolted to the bottom of the transport..  
  
It didn't understand why it'd been woken from its slumber, why they had come for it and had pulled it out of its dark, safe cave and into the sunlight where it howled in fury and fought like a wild thing, killing several of these men before being subdued. Unless it had something to do with the humans it had come across some weeks before. It had been purely accidental; it had been thirsty, the dry hot air parching its throat, drying its skin and making life in general miserable for the alien. It hated the desert it had come to, and hated the fact that its thirst had roused it from its nearly five hundred year sleep. But it had gone out in search of water, and had found it some several miles off; what it hadn't known was that humans inhabited the area; so it came as a shock to both the alien and the humans when they'd come upon each other. It had been swimming, absorbing water through its skin, refreshing itself, and drinking deeply from the pure tasting water. It couldn't recall the water being this fresh at home, so it had drank deeply, sated and sleepy once more by the liquid, and from the fruit it had eaten off a nearby tree, when the humans had shown up and both too startled to move stared at each other with fear filled eyes. Then it had disappeared, leaving its clothes behind, simply vanishing in front of their eyes.  
  
So the army had been called, they had sent out a special task force to apprehend the creature, and so they had, with efficient and swift fury. It had of course fought back, but in the end it got it now where. except.  
  
The Lab; the dark room with the covered faces, the painful needles, and the operations that rendered it senseless from pain, it tried to tell them that it couldn't succumb to sleeping aids, that putting it to sleep did nothing more than make it drowsy and sluggish. It endured the exploratory surgeries in a red hot pain filled haze, the creature quickly learning that they didn't know or didn't care that it felt pain, that when it screamed and cried that it was not out of rage or anger, but out of pure pain and suffering. It lived in a constant state of pain and fear, trying desperately to communicate with these simple minded things that it too felt, that it thought, and had feelings. But these ignorant humans blithely ignored it, assuming that its gestures were indeed some sort of communication, but apparently such basic sign language was beyond these creatures.  
  
They gave it food and water, but never once gave it clothing, it felt vulnerable and exposed to the elements, and often times shivered in the cold room, beneath the thin blanket, and often times cried softly.  
  
Then one evening they had come and taken it away again, this time to a different room, an empty room with nothing inside. This confused it, and the confusion was apparent on the creatures face as it slowly crept to a corner and stood there waiting for the humans to make some move. They watched impassively, and it watched just as impassively back. It didn't dare use its skills here; it could prove disastrous for all around. They exited and another pair of humans came in dragging in something with them. Its head was covered and the thing reeked as if it was something rotten living. The creature that was with the humans snarled and jerked on its restraints and the two humans quickly let go of the things chains and closed the door hurriedly behind them.  
  
They had left this thing alone with it. The other creature snuffled and snarled, tearing off the head covering, rendering the cloth to nothing more than tattered pieces. The thing was hideous, and the smaller creature had never seen anything like it. The smaller one stepped back in fear, back pressed against the wall and stared at the hulking mass of reeking flesh.  
  
The monstrous thing faintly resembled one of its own kind, but larger, deformed, something that would have been destroyed upon its birth. The power alone from it was enough to send the smaller one to pursue some means of escape.  
  
The larger creature growled and sniffed the air, then as it caught the smaller ones scent its beady eyes focused on it. The larger creature grinned, the mouth full of flesh tearing teeth; no, this thing was nothing like it. This creature was something more hideous than any thing a nightmare could conjure and it had focused on the smaller one, its musky scent spiking as it laid eyes on the smaller one.  
  
The smaller one sneered and crouched into a defensive posture, if the thing wanted to have at it, then so be it, but it wouldn't get what it wanted without a fight. And fight they did, the larger beast pounced on the smaller one, slamming it against the wall and tearing at the creature with teeth and hands, trying its best to pin it down; the smaller one tore back, using its own claws and power to blast the thing back. The ugly monster howled in pain as ki exploded against its body, driving it back to the other side of the room.  
  
The smaller one wasn't without its wounds either. It had its arm torn and was bleeding badly, but at least it was still standing. The other creature wasn't so fortunate. Quickly the humans came in and dragged out the unconscious monster, keeping a wary eye on the smaller creature. They closed the door and left the smaller one alone to itself.  
  
After hours of waiting, wanting water and to clean up; they came for it and put it back to its room, where it was cleaned and taken care of.  
  
Several more times the smaller alien met with the huge one, and twice it had succeeded in getting what it wanted from the smaller one, despite its best efforts to keep the creature off of it. But it paid dearly afterwards, the smaller creature pent up with hatred and anger turned on the sleepy and spent larger alien and had beaten the thing nearly to death each time, the humans having to come in and shoot the creature with a paralyzing weapon to get it to stop. After that there were no more meetings between the two. The larger one could be heard in another corridor sometimes howling and tearing things apart, but the smaller one never saw anyone else but the humans, who watched it, took blood samples, and measured its body occasionally.  
  
Soon after they came and took it to a different room. There they injected something into the small alien and laid it in a soft coffin like bed, there it grew sleepy, and soon it knew nothing.  
  
Darkness for so long, that's all it knew, no matter how hard it tried to wake, it remained in a forced slumber. Soon it stopped sensing others to check on it, it sensed darkness and an emptiness that stretched to eternity. It slept deeper, dreaming of green fields, tall trees and endless sunlight, it dreamt of laughing voices, friends long passed, cool breezes and cold water. It longed for those, and in this forced slumber it could have it. So it dreamed and extended its other senses out, seeking something familiar, something to touch and feel.  
  
Then one night it felt a presence it hadn't felt before. It was brief, almost fleeting and for a moment it didn't quite believe it had happened. A mind so much like its own, with memories so much like its own, that it felt like for a second it had hit a mirror; A vision of someone tall, stoic and reserved; someone that spelled out salvation.  
  
It cried out in its native tongue, crying for help, and telling the mind that it was so very dark, so very cold, and so very, very lonely, telling the other its name. It wasn't sure if the other had heard, but it was a glimmer of hope all the same.  
  
After the presence had gone, had disappeared, it sighed in its sleep and resumed its dreams of sunny fields, lakes and endless sunlight.  
  
Piccolo woke up with a hand shaking his shoulder, opening his eyes to a very concerned looking Popo and Dende standing by his bed, Dende's hand locked in a firm grip on his shoulder. "Piccolo wake up, please! Wake up! You're having a bad dream."  
  
~Allet Kihann, doau chai!~ Piccolo's eyes focused finally and he stared at Dende dully. "What is it Dende." He rubbed his face and sat up, feeling oddly chilled and even more oddly thirsty. "What'd you wake me for?"  
  
"I heard you screaming all the way from the hall Piccolo, I thought something was wrong." The younger namek looked at Piccolo with more concern than the older namek thought necessary. "That and you were screaming for someone to not go, I had really thought you were being attacked or something."  
  
"Huh?" Piccolo stared at Dende completely perplexed by his words. "What do you mean I was yelling don't go? And to who was I yelling at?"  
  
Dende shrugged his slender shoulders and responded slowly, "Well you were yelling in Namekkian for one, and I've never heard you speak it before, and like I said, for a second I thought someone else was here, and then I came in saw you thrashing on the bed like a crazy person, screaming in our language for someone to stay."  
  
"I don't know Namekkian Dende, I never learned it." Piccolo leveled an annoyed gaze at Dende and snorted softly. "I never had the opportunity to learn while on Namek, and I haven't really accessed Kami's memories long enough to pick up on anything."  
  
The dream had caused Piccolo to feel unbalanced and feeling strange. Whatever it was had wanted him to help, but was it a precognition of some sort? Or was it something pulled from his imagination from too many books, and not enough time spent doing other things? Or could it have really been someone calling him from someplace dark to help it?  
  
He realized Dende and Popo were standing there waiting for some sort of answer. "I'm fine, just a bad dream, I probably just heard the words from Kami before and repeated them for whatever reason. Go on and go back to whatever it was you were doing. I'm going to take a shower and head to earth for a while."  
  
Swinging his legs over the bed, he headed to his own private bath chambers without waiting for Dende or Popo to leave, closing the door behind him.  
  
Dende and Popo stood there for a few more moments after Piccolo had departed; Dende looked to Popo and shrugged. "Well, there's not much we can do for him, he'll realize what his dreams mean soon enough."  
  
Both of them turned and headed back to their previous duties, leaving Piccolo to his own devices. Soon after Piccolo exited his rooms and took off for earth. Dende smiled faintly to himself and watched from his heavenly perch. Relieved to see that Piccolo still indeed possess emotions and had gone in search of something. 


	3. Bring me to life Questions asked, answer...

Bulma finished putting away the groceries with an exasperated sigh; it was an all day thing to grocery shop for her family now. With Trunks and Vegeta's eating habits, plus occasionally feeding Goten was a test of patience and culinary skills that would make the most patient saint and cooking master swear in frustration. But, she did it anyways. Well, she thought, at least Goten won't be eating over any time soon; not with Chichi putting him through school now and needing him home to help take care of the house.  
  
"MOM! PICCOLO'S HERE TO SEE YOU!" Trunks voice shattered the silence of the house. She blinked in surprise and quickly washed her hands before heading out towards the front door.  
  
"Piccolo's here, did he say what he wanted?" She intercepted the young boy as he prepared to bolt off back to his room to play whatever new video game had come out. He squirmed in her arms and shrugged.  
  
"Dunno, he just said he needed to talk to you and not to tell dad."  
  
A soft snort issued from the now viewable namek. "I hardly think that matters now. Since you just told everyone within a five mile radius that I'm here and who I need to see; now get out of here, I have something important to talk to your mother about."  
  
Bulma chuckled and dropped Trunks to the floor, letting the kid hit on his hands and knees, and watched him scramble off. "You still have the ability to intimidate, Piccolo. Now what can I do for you? And no need to worry; Vegeta's off gods know where training."  
  
Piccolo nodded and regarded the woman for a moment before speaking. "I need to know if you know anything about a place called Cyscal Gene labs."  
  
Bulma blinked slowly considering the words. "I know a bit about it, I know that it's in another city quite a bit a way's from here, and that they did genetic experiments for the government and for other countries. If you have time, I can probably find a bit of information on it in our database. Its uh, classified, but I trust you not to go selling it to the media or something; but I have to ask what you want it for; that way if something does happen and they investigate I can have a good alibi by the time it gets to me."  
  
Piccolo frowned a bit; he didn't really want to tell her about the dream, he hadn't wanted to come to her in the first place; but when he'd seen the name on the side of the van they'd tossed whatever it was in, it had piqued his curiosity. "I suppose it can't hurt to tell. Just keep it from that idiot husband of yours. I don't need to be pestered by him."  
  
Bulma nodded and shrugged, "I'm pissed at him anyways right now, so now worries there. C'mon, follow me to the computer room and I'll grab the information you need, meanwhile you can explain to me why you need it;" She side glanced at the larger man and raised a brow. "Unless it's something you can't tell me."  
  
Piccolo shook his head. "I'll tell you what I know, and that's not much. I knew you and your father had connections to the scientific world, and the vision I had earlier had the words Cyscal Gene Labs in it somewhere." "Well, tell me about it, to be honest I'm curious about this vision, mainly because Cys labs haven't been in operation for over geeze, ten years? Somewhere around there."  
  
Piccolo nodded, that was an important piece of information, and he tucked it away. "I had a vision, of something, an alien I assume that had lived here, from what I gathered from the vision for quite a long time. It'd been hibernating of sorts when it had been woken up and went in search of food and water. Some humans had come upon it and reported the thing to the police or military, I'm not sure which; but the military had shown up and had dragged the thing off, I saw through its eyes, and I recall before they blind folded us, it, whatever that the van had the labs logo on it. The vision continues." Piccolo went into detailed explanation of what it had experienced, and what it had shared with him. That a second alien had also been captured by these people and they had been put together in the same room with near disastrous results. He also told of how the creature had been put in some sort of stasis, and apparently was now trying to wake; calling out to Piccolo for help.  
  
Bulma nodded as she took in all the information, and sat down at her computer. Piccolo stood behind her, arms folded over his chest waiting for her to begin working. He watched as she opened up a database browser and began typing away. After about a minute, the computer began to spit up information, showing pictures and documents. Bulma read bits aloud to the namek as they came up.  
  
"It says here that the lab was opened up around seventy nearly eighty years ago, well before our time, and was first used as a doctors office that specialized in rare diseases and genetic research, the research mainly being trying to find answers as to why certain defects showed up in a certain group of people, or why certain races ended up with a disease, but another couldn't contract it. They continued to do this kind of work for about maybe ten or so years, until they had their funding pulled out from under them by their private benefactors for delving into stem cell research and genetic manipulations; and then the Military got in touch with them."  
  
Bulma scanned the screen, scrolling down to a large paragraph of information and continued, "The military sent a high ranking General to speak with a Doctor San-Yi Murashi about funding his research, but the catch was that the Army had say in what the good doctor did and didn't do with the research. Murashi, desperate for funding, accepted the Generals terms and was immediately put to work researching gene splicing, and genetic alterations, making people, humans in general stronger, faster, smarter, with more stamina; basically super humans that the military could use in their ranks. Men who wouldn't need to eat but maybe once a day, could walk without fatigue, could figure out problems and deal with them on their own; you know basically drones with super intelligence. There was some serious ethical issues that Murashi didn't like, but he didn't really have much choice; this General was a hard ass and if he didn't like how things were progressing, he made sure that 'accidents' would happen in the labs to set back Murashi's personal work. He also placed a Lieutenant and some military staff there to keep an eye on the doctor and his staff."  
  
Piccolo nodded and considered a few things. "If the military was involved, that would explain the uniformed people in the vision. It would also explain why they'd want to capture aliens."  
  
"Right, the military knows that aliens existed; you being a prime example. But they always had a hard time getting a hold of them and keeping them alive long enough or detained long enough without suffering damages." The blue-haired woman responded. "There just wasn't an Outer-space-men-R-Us retail store that they could go to and pick up a dozen aliens for genetic experiments, you know?" Bulma laughed faintly and continued reading. "The Lieutenant was just as hard assed as his General; he made sure the medical staff had all the military's work done before they could pursue personal objectives. Murashi was working in a cure for Cancer and another for Multiple Sclerosis, he'd had a few good leads, and more than one break- through; but that had to be put aside for the Army's work. Murashi was becoming an aggravated man. The final straw came when the army started storing things in his lab."  
  
"What kind of things, Bulma?" Piccolo raised a brow ridge, and a strange sense of urgency creeped up on him.  
  
"They had found an actual, living, breathing- but wounded alien. It doesn't say in here what kind of alien it had found, or where the location of its capture had been, but that it was alive, and obviously not from this world. Murashi made a note about it in his journals; here I'll read it to you:  
  
Lieutenant Yasan and his men brought in something I'd rather not have in my facility! The abomination is violent, filthy and foul smelling. It frightens my medical staff and already two of my lab assistants have quit because of the things presence. The thing has killed at least two other staff members, and one officer. I have no idea what it is, but it is obviously of an intelligent nature and species, it understands us, or feigns understanding, its eyes. the creatures eyes possess a sharpness and a clarity that sends ice water down my spine and hot water settle in my stomach. Its eyes are like nothing I've ever seen; they swirl like oil over water, or perhaps more-so like mercury over a black table. There are no pupils from what I can see; the eyes are just a solid mass of blackness interspersed with silver. Its hands are more like claws or pincers, three fingers and a thumb, the claws and teeth are that of an obvious carnivore. Its movements are quick despite its size, and I have a feeling it's used to a heavier gravity than what our planet has.  
  
Yasan and Murashi want my staff and me to deal with it. Deal with it! How do you deal with something that can barely be sedated let alone approached when it's sleeping? I cannot say; and it's frustrating me, and my staff, not to mention the Lieutenant. He insists we find something to make the creature calm, but how does one do that when you cannot even approach it to take samples of its blood, or to catalogue its genetic structure?  
  
The other problem I find myself facing is, if the General wants me to start performing experiments on this thing, how am I to accomplish that with the little resources he's given me? I have minimal staff, and the soldiers based here are of little to no use at all. There's no way we can handle such a monster on our own. I'm trapped here, with that thing; and I wonder how long it will be before I or it escape. I pray it's me that gets away before the thing figures out how to.  
  
Bulma sat back and rubbed her eyes, then glanced back at the namek who looked half troubled and half annoyed. "There's more, but I really don't feel like reading it all to you, I can print out a copy and you can read it at your leisure."  
  
Piccolo nodded. "Yes, please. That would be for the best, and that way I can pick out information as I need it. Can you also pull up the address of this building, as well as any floor plans if possible?"  
  
Bulma nodded a bit as she pressed print on the printer and waited for copies to come out, handing them to Piccolo as they appeared one by one. Piccolo glanced over them as she gave them to him. "Address I can pull, floor plans are a bit harder to come by. But I'm sure if you really wanted them, and if I tried hard enough I could obtain a copy for you. Tell me you're not planning on going to that building Piccolo; there'd be nothing there, and if there was it'd be long dead by now. If whatever it was contacted you, the military probably would have moved it. They wouldn't abandon their projects leaving them to die."  
  
Piccolo grunted as he glanced through one of the sheets of paper. "Not according to this; Murashi states that after a second alien was captured, that the military suddenly abandoned their experiments, called it quits and just up and left. The General and Lieutenant both disappeared and any attempts at contacting them were diverted by other ranked officials. As well as the media had gotten a hold of some incriminating documents, that named names. Chances are, the General and his friends are either someplace very cold, remote and out of the way, or if they were disposable, they're more than likely serving up as worm food in a ditch somewhere. The labs been closed for ten years. Murashi also mentions something about cryogenics. If something is in cryo-sleep, and if the machines it was hooked to maintained a constant state, no one would need to be there to watch them, or so this paper says. As for going to the building, probably; I'm not sure. If something is there, and it's called me for help, its only fair that I find it and at least check it out. It could be a potential threat Bulma, and if it was to escape; well let's put it this way; you remember Cell. If we had gotten to him before Gero had, we could have taken him out in before he'd even had a chance to escape. What if this thing, whatever it is has called not only me but another person susceptible to visions? What if this thing Murashi described is using the second alien to call for help? Looking for food or whatever? There are too many possibilities Bulma to let this slide."  
  
Bulma gave him a severe look, one that plainly said she didn't like what he was planning; but she didn't have a choice in the matter. "Well, at least take someone with you, or let someone besides me know that you're going."  
  
Piccolo shook his head and frowned. "No, I don't want anyone knowing about this until I've gauged the situation, and that INCLUDES Vegeta; do you understand me?"  
  
She nodded and sighed, "Fine, I won't tell anyone Piccolo. But if you're gone too long and at least don't let me know you're okay, I will contact Goku or Gohan and send them to look for you. The idiot man of mine wouldn't do it if I asked him, so that's pointless."  
  
A low chuckle from Piccolo made Bulma grin a bit. "You're right about that. There's no love lost between us, and I actually prefer that if you did send anyone find Goku. He's strongest and would be best in a situation. Thank you for the information Bulma, it helped a lot and at least I know now that I'm not walking in completely blind."  
  
Bulma again nodded and stood. "Glad I could help Piccolo; remember if I don't hear from you within three days I'll find Goku. Take care and be careful."  
  
The Namek nodded and exited without another word. Taking off for the direction of the town Cys labs was located. Bulma watched Piccolo take off, with a worried expression on her face, before turning in and reaching for the phone. Picking it up, she dialed a well used number.  
  
"Hey Videl, how are you doing? Great, glad to hear that the pregnancy is going well. I hope that tea that I suggested for morning sickness works; it worked miracles on me during my pregnancy with Trunks, Chichi said that she had a hell of a time with both Gohan and Goten's pregnancies and she figured it was just the way humans reacted to saiyajin babies developing." Bulma laughed as she listened to a response on the phone. "Listen, do you think I could talk to Gohan? That is if he isn't busy with work. Great, I'll hold for him."  
  
Bulma glanced out her window nervously, half expecting Piccolo to come storming in and chew her out for calling Gohan. Instead she jumped when she heard Gohans voice on the other end. "Hello, Bulma? Is something wrong?"  
  
"Oh! Hey Gohan, no nothings wrong really, just wanted to give you a heads up, and possibly a request to talk to your father if you can contact the big boob. Listen, Piccolo's gone off on some kind of search and rescue mission. I don't want to go into details, but do me a favor; keep an ear out? I told him that if I didn't hear from him in three or four days that I'd send your father after him. I promised to keep my mouth shut to everyone about it until I had to tell someone, but I thought you being the closest to him that you'd want to know, and that way if something does happen and I'm away on business, someone else would have knowledge of it. Thanks Gohan for your help, I'm sure if Piccolo runs into trouble he'd appreciate it too." Replacing the phone into its cradle she chewed on her lip and struggled with feeling guilty for betraying the Namek, but neither did she want to feel more guilt later on if something did happen to him. Shaking her head she switched off the computer and headed back to her fathers lab, to ask him some questions, hopefully without incriminating Piccolo or herself.  
  
Piccolo flew high above the cities and over pockets of dense forest and farmers fields. He considered his options as he flew along, not in a hurry. He had to think some things through before he rushed headlong into the situation he possibly faced.  
  
Okay, based on the information at hand, the lab was shut down; but that was ten years ago, or so Bulma said. It's possible that the lab could have been operating while shut down, just on a lower level. The military could possibly still be running the experiments without Cys labs permission. Not that they'd be concerned about asking for it. All they would need is a few scientists willing to take hazard pay and a lump sum of money to work in secrecy. Military's done it before; chances are they'd do it again.  
  
Or the lab could have been moved. Maybe whatever contacted me was sending me only what it remembered. There's a good chance of that as well, and if it's been moved, there'd be little chance of me finding it. Well, I'll just have to take my chances with the lab and work my way from there. Halting in mid-air he pulled the papers from his sash belt and looked them over for the address again. Bulma had been nice enough to include a map with specific directions on how to get there. Looking around in the dusky sunset, he gained his bearings and headed north. 


	4. Bring me to life 4 A rescue, a face, a n...

Piccolo landed at the darkened building shortly after sunset; the sounds of traffic echoed dully off of high cement walls, and empty hollow aluminum hangar sized storage sheds that made the outside world noises sound eerie and distorted. The area had the isolated 'keep-out' feel to it, and the namek was sure that was what the place had wanted; was for everyone to keep out. Well, Piccolo thought with faint amusement, they didn't count on people who could actually show up from above.  
  
He looked around at the building; it still stood tall, and whole; the first floor had the official business look to it, large smoked glass windows gleamed dully in the night light, polished to where it reflected out, so that a person approaching couldn't see inside. Not that it bothered Piccolo; even if there were people inside he could have easily gotten past them, and to his goal. The next three or so levels of the building was interspersed with windows here and there, some too narrow to provide any decent outside lighting, and he wondered if those windows were meant to keep those inside, curious about the outside world, maybe a world they weren't allowed to go out into.  
  
Piccolo had been mildly curious about the building, and reluctantly had gone to Bulma and asked about Cyscal Gene Labs, and what purpose they had served during it's hey day of genetic splicing and experiments. Bulma had told him that the place had been military contracted, that they had performed experiments in humans and animals alike, trying to find the perfect combination that would allow the military to have their super human army. There had also been rumors that the military had found a couple of alien life forms as well, and had quickly hidden them there in the labs, supposedly in the basements; but neither Bulma nor her father could confirm it, nor had they wanted to. Both had believed that the labs were an abomination to science and to the military.  
  
So Piccolo had gotten the address from Bulma and without a word to anyone else, he'd flown halfway across the country in search of the voice that had spoken to him in his dreams, in the strange language he knew, yet didn't know. The voice that had cried for help, that they were trapped and couldn't get out; but what did it mean? Was there some alien creature inside that had sought out another akin to it, trapped and forgotten?  
  
Well, he was about to find out. Popping the door open with a simple flex of ki, he stepped inside the dark reception area. It reeked of dust, mold and medicine, along with a strong hint of decaying things. Things abandoned, forgotten or simply tossed aside. Wrinkling his nose at the smell of decay he continued his way inside, ignoring the dead potted plants, the plastic covered couches and chairs in the waiting room.  
  
Hnn, waiting room, waiting for what. What did they expect people to do? Come in and volunteer to be genetically altered? Somehow I doubt that they had very many people knocking on their doors to become a potential corpse in the name of science. Piccolo mused silently.  
  
He stopped at the reception desk, looking for something that would indicate what was on each floor. After a few moments of tossing aside useless papers, order forms, and consent signature forms, he came across the key map and studied it in the dimmed emergency lighting, ignoring the fact that he'd just made a mess out of the reception area. It wasn't like anyone was going to show up soon and scold him for tossing aside papers that had been turned into rats' nests and homes for spiders.  
  
First floor held nothing but the typical office lay out, reception desk, waiting room, and paper pushers offices, the grunts who did all the leg work. Second floor was mostly again offices and a few unmarked rooms, to which he assumed, were either bathrooms or cleaning supplies closets, since they seemed to indicate on the map to be too small to serve any other purpose than that. Third floor held some promise, the rooms were more laid out in a formal row, each one carefully marked with a room number, but hardly any of them indicated what they were for. Fourth floor was a complete blank; it looked like it was just one large storage area divided into five or six different rooms.  
  
Turning the key map over, he studied two smaller drawn diagrams that divided the page; one said SL: 1, the other SL: 2. Absently tucking the map into his belt sash, he headed for the elevators, he knew there was no way that they were still operational, but he could if needed to force the doors open and punch a hole through either the ceiling or floor allowing him to squeeze through.  
  
Well, if there's one thing I've learned while being forced to sit and watch horror movies and video games with Goku and Gohan when he was a kid, was that there were always the following three things in a building like this. Sub-basements, blood splattered walls, and monsters. The only variation in this little scenario is that I'm the monster hunting- whatever.  
  
Whoever called me, said that it was dark, cold, very cold and quiet. That would probably indicate that they're in a basement somewhere; since who ever came through here when they closed down, made sure the place was cleaned and covered before locking the doors. Chances are, they didn't even know of any possible sub-levels. The third floors had windows, fourth floor did as well, but higher set and thin, like the kind of windows you'd find in a prison.  
  
Forcing the elevator doors open, he was pleased to see that the shaft was virtually empty going downward; looking up, he noted that the carriages had been stopped on the top floor, and hung there eternally waiting for some one to come and use them again.  
  
Jumping down, he extended his other senses, the senses he used to detect ki, and sometimes thought patterns, looking for the mind of the voice that had called to him so desperately three days ago. Passing the regular basement level, he stopped at the first sub-basement and pried the doors open, landing on the tiled floor. It was virtually pitch black, but his sensitive eyes picked out shapes. He summoned up a ki sphere, the energy lit the area around him and it helped with figuring out which direction to go.  
  
Gazing at his surroundings Piccolo had the feeling of being trapped for a moment; he snorted and shook off the feeling, it was a ridiculous feeling and thought; he could easily destroy this building with hardly a thought, why should he feel trapped?  
  
Then it occurred to him, that perhaps it wasn't he who was feeling trapped, but whatever that had called him here. Pressing on he ignored the creeping darkness around him, the light of his ki making it look as if a halo of light followed him, keeping the inky blackness at bay, keeping it from consuming him and swallowing him whole.  
  
Stop that! Piccolo snarled to himself and to whatever it was that called him. Stop acting like a child, and you, whoever you are stop putting these emotions into my head!  
  
Amazingly enough the feelings went away, and he was able to resume his search without feeling anything else other than what he wanted to feel, and that suited him fine, it at least let him focus on where he was going, and kept him from getting lost in the labyrinth of hallways.  
  
Over there, to his right was light creeping out from under a door. It was the only light on in this level and he seemed to just know that it was the place he needed to be. Piccolo stepped around an apparently hastily discarded gurney, distinguishing the ki light. He paused a moment, not sure if he was ready to face what was inside. IF there was anything inside to face, and if whatever was in there actually in there and alive. Steeling himself he pushed open the door and stepped inside.  
  
The room was destroyed, it looked like a tornado had swept through tossing everything aside after breaking it; a cryo-capsule stood in the center of the room like a sentinel to the destruction, or perhaps responsible for it. The light that illuminated the room came from the capsule itself, and he approached cautiously- something didn't feel quite right. Glass crunched loudly under his feet in the silence and it again set him on edge. He got the distinct feeling of hatred, the emotion almost as thick as the dust that covered the room; and it set him on edge, making him glance at the shadows that lurked in the corner. He half expected something to come lunging out at him as he approached the capsule, but of course nothing did.  
  
The glass was cracked, pieces of it had fallen out and as Piccolo peered into the darkened capsule he choked and gagged as the stench hit him, the thing inside was anything but human and it had been dead for some time. It grinned in its death grin, the hands obviously broken from its attempts to escape; the eyes bulged out of their sockets in a mummified stare of horror. How long has this thing been here? Piccolo wondered as he stepped back and studied the creature more fully.  
  
It had an odd appearance, at least the husk did, and it eerily reminded him of Cell in one of his weaker forms; it looked as if the body had been nothing more than a host, the chest split open, the skin and bone around the open area exposed and splintered, as if something had exploded from its chest and had taken most of the internal organs with it. If the thing had internal organs to begin with; suppressing another shudder he quickly exited the room, into the hallway and down off to his left, where he noticed another light underneath a doorway, this one a bit more brighter than the last room; and as he approached, he had the feeling that he'd finally found the right room.  
  
Again he stopped at the doorway; was what he doing right? Was finding the voice in his dreams going to lead to something he'd later regret? Then again, he'd considered that the whole thing could possibly be an elaborate trap on someone's part; but if that were the case why hadn't anything happened by now?  
  
Shaking off such thoughts he entered pulling the door open and stepping inside without another thought. The Cryo-capsule of this room was whole, undamaged and he was slightly relieved to see that the room itself appeared to be untouched as well. He knew instinctively that this was the room in which the voice had called him. With a slight air of caution, he approached the capsule.  
  
His hand slid across the smooth glass, nails scraping ever so slightly across the thick ice as he circled the capsule, the light beneath the cryo- capsule illuminated the dismal long forgotten room; wiping away condensation and frost, the chill of the room making him shiver ever so slightly, or was it really the cold that made him shiver? Perhaps it was the apprehension he felt; as if he was about to embark on something unknown, and very possibly dangerous by himself.  
  
Was what was inside responsible for the dreams; the faint whispers in the back of his mind, the pleas for help? Could what was inside have shown him just how to get here? The visions of the dark hallways of the long abandoned cryo-lab, the only lights on in the building were so far below ground that no one saw them. His heart thudded loudly, hollowly inside his chest, as he scraped away more of the ice that had built up over the glass casing, his nails gouging out deep chunks, yet it seemed like that the ice was as thick as his hand was wide. He eventually gave up and used his own ki to melt away the ice that had built up over time; with each second the ice melted, a shape began to take form.  
  
As the last bit of ice melted away, Piccolo gave a strangled cry and fell backwards, knocking over a tray and stand, scattering instruments covered in rust and dust; back hitting the wall with a dull thud that sent clouds of dust billowing up around him; his eyes wide and horrified at the face that stared up at him through the glass; asleep in seeming eternity.  
  
Piccolo slid down the wall, slowly coming to a stop on his butt, knees tucked up to his chest, eyes locked on the capsule before him. A million thoughts ran through his head yet not a single one was coherent enough for even him to understand.  
  
Gods, dear gods above it can't be. it's impossible for it to be. Calm down, I have to calm down, otherwise I'm going to start raving like a lunatic. There has to be a reasonable explanation for all this. A perfectly, reasonable and sane reason for what I saw.  
  
Shakily getting to his feet, knees feeling weak and unsteady, he pushed aside medical equipment and approached the capsule once more, almost unwillingly peering down into the serene face before him, palms resting on the icy glass, breaths puffing out into the cold air.  
  
It was beautiful. The creature before him was surely Namekkian in every aspect; the sculpted head, the slender antennae, the finely carved ears, brow ridges, high set cheekbones, and the wide almond shaped eyes divided by a small but well defined nose. It was a statue of perfection, and it made Piccolo wonder if he was looking at some resin copy of a namek of a bygone time. It was also very much female.  
  
The fog around the capsule cleared, the ice melted away more rapidly now, more of the creatures body revealed. First a thin neck, slender shoulders covered in softer pink patches, the ice over the chest area slide off revealing a pair of bare breasts, both covered in the pinkish skin in a heart shaped sort of way, the light skin trailing down to the V shape of her crotch and ending there. The rest of her body was covered in the same familiar emerald colored skin, only it looked pale, as if bleached to a light jade color.  
  
Piccolo glanced around for a way to turn the cryo-capsule off. It seemed to be self supporting, but he didn't see how. Then he caught the Capsule Corp. logo on the side of it and realized that Dr. Briefs, the creator of capsule technology, would have made it self supporting. Easier for travel and convenient for those working in the field of anthropology, and in the field of medicine, in case they had to work on someone right there in the trauma zone. It would also explain why Bulma had had some knowledge of the labs. Piccolo instead focused on finding a way to open the glass cover, checking for hinges or a handle. After several moments of frustration he snarled and simply blasted off the top of the glass casing, shattering the thick stuff all over.  
  
She didn't stir from her slumber as he brushed away bits of glass and Piccolo wondered if she wasn't dead. But that wasn't possible. He could sense a faint amount of ki emanating from her nearly frozen body; and as he lifted her out of the coffin like bed, he could sense her body starting to limber up as she grew warmer. Besides, if she had been dead, why would she have gone through the effort of summoning him here just to retrieve a corpse?  
  
Piccolo didn't stop to think about these things for very long, he had an impending sense of danger, and knew that if he didn't get out of there soon, something was bound to happen, and if that was the case, he'd much rather fight outside than in the hallways of a dead building. Looking down at the nude, prone body of this supposed namek, he pulled off his weighted cape, and tore the shoulder armor away from the main part of the cape and wrapped her up inside of it; not much protection, but it'd serve its purpose at least until he got home.  
  
Glancing down at the creature again, he felt something odd and disturbing deep down in his gut; shaking his head he ran out the door and down the hallway until he came to the elevator and launched up into it, and back into the lobby. He kicked open the door and flew out into the night with his bundle to his chest.  
  
Now the question remained was; who was she, how'd she get here, and just what exactly was she, if she wasn't a namek? Piccolo growled softly and headed up to the Lookout, careful to mask his presence from Dende and Popo, he didn't want to answer anymore questions than he had answered already the day before.  
  
Landing on the edge of the large Lookout, Piccolo made sure the coast was clear; in a way he felt like he was sneaking someone into his rooms for a night of- glancing down at the bundle in his arms, he shoved the thought out of his head as soon as it conjured, flushing at the thought.  
  
He entered his own room and laid her on the bed, unbundling the package and stared down at her.  
  
Now what? Piccolo wondered as he lifted her legs up and pulled the blankets down and then back up over her shoulders. She had made no signs of stirring, nor had she indicated that she'd wake any time soon. Piccolo pulled up a chair and sat by the bed, using the back of his hand to check her body temperature. He was pleased to feel that she was warming up, and was at least gaining some bit of color back to her skin. He noticed that her chest rose and fell slowly and rhythmically, and soon she began to toss a bit, her mouth working to speak, to cry out something but her voice refusing to work.  
  
Here eyes snapped open and Piccolo was stunned to see that the irises were a sapphire blue, the color of the deepest ocean. They were nothing like he'd ever seen on a namek, nor on anyone else. She distracted him from her eyes however when she lashed out with a hand and batted at him in pure fear, desperate to escape or at least get him away from her.  
  
She sprang from the bed, the sheets tangling around her waist and promptly fell flat on her face; Piccolo winced at the sound of body hitting the floor and moved to help her up.  
  
"Hey, calm down, you're safe. My name is," Piccolo doubled over in pain as a fist connected with his throat forcing the wind pipe to close off for a moment. He gagged and chocked watching the woman tear the sheets with a primal ferocity that nearly scared the other Namek.  
  
She bolted for the door and just before she was about to fling it open, Piccolo managed to call out something in Namekkian. ~Allet!~  
  
She stopped, her hands fluttering slightly as they poised over the door handle, turning to face him with a look of pure fear. Her chest heaved, shoulders shaking as she stared at him in disbelief. ~Allet?~  
  
Piccolo nodded, remaining where he was at, even going so far as to sit on the bed, trying to show that he meant her no harm, nor did he have any intentions of chasing her down. "That means stop. right? I never learned much Namekkian.." He trailed off uncertainly.  
  
She blinked a couple times and frowned; obviously they weren't communicating well. Piccolo didn't know enough of the Namekkian language to get by, and it was apparent she didn't know enough common to understand him.  
  
She tilted her head at him and licked her lips, purple tongue darting out just long enough to moisten her lips, then disappeared just as quickly. Clearing her throat she started to speak, failed and started again, in halting common. "Kihann, name is. Yes." She nodded once certain that her words were correct before continuing. "Called, mind to yours; called hard as could I, long dark time, called. Only your mind heard, no one came to my calls any time other."  
  
Brow ridges creased, Piccolo followed the conversation as best as he could. He motioned to the bed noticing that she was using the door to hold her up. "Come sit down, you've just been through one hell of an ordeal and I'm sure you're still pretty weak. Besides there's no where for you to run off to anyways, you're up on a place called the Lookout, and that's one hell of a jump for someone. I can pretty much bet you wouldn't survive the fall. My name is Piccolo, Kihann."  
  
He felt awkward, somewhat silly and juvenile in how he was handling the situation, but what else was he supposed to do? He'd never been faced with... This before, and he couldn't exactly treat her like he treated everyone else. Exhaling slowly, not having realized he was holding his breath, he rubbed his face. "I'm going to be honest Kihann, this isn't easy for me, and these next few days are going to be far more difficult for you. Especially if you're who I think you are, and from where I think you're from. Once you get a little better grasp of the common language, we'll talk a bit more, but for now you've got to get back into bed and rest. I'll bring up some water for you and some clothes, you can't go out looking like that, Dende's going to have a heart attack as it is when I tell him about you. Do you have any questions?"  
  
Kihann blinked slowly, of course she had questions, she wanted to ask him to repeat everything he'd said, wanted to ask how long she'd been asleep, wanted to ask about the lab he'd gotten her out of, and a million other things. But she couldn't not right now, he was right in the fact that she was exhausted, scared and very thirsty. Kihann sighed softly and tottered her way to the bed, half way there before her legs gave out; she started to cry out in anticipation of a fall, but two strong arms encircled around her tightly and held her for a moment. She stiffened at the feeling of being restrained and twisted so suddenly that he let her go, allowing Kihann to slash at his face with extended claws. Piccolo jerked back, narrowing avoiding having his eyes gouged out.  
  
"Hey! Dammit I'm trying to help here!" Piccolo let her fall onto the bed and scowled deeply. "Get some rest, we'll talk more tomorrow."  
  
With that he turned and exited leaving her alone. Kihann sat on the bed, and stared at the door, heart hammering in her chest heavily, making her feel queasy and ill. He was so strange to her, not smelling like any namek that she'd recall smelling before, he had an air of.. Nothingness about him, and that bothered her. She didn't' like being around things she couldn't scent, but he'd helped her. Curling up in the blankets, piling them around her so that they nearly buried her alive, she soon dozed, unsettled by all that had transpired.  
  
Piccolo stood on top of the Lookout palace and extended his other senses, keeping a mental eye on her until she fell asleep. Once he'd sensed she'd fallen asleep, he sighed. It was time to tell Dende. 


	5. Bring me to life 5 Things learned

Kihann poked her head from around the corner of the hallway, her eyes wide with curiosity; it had been only her third day up on this strange place called the Lookout, but she had already explored most of her room, a couple of the other rooms next to hers and now she was curious as to just where the rest of the hallway went off to. She of course knew that Piccolo would be a little upset that she'd gone off wandering on her own, but Kihann just couldn't sit still any longer. She'd slept for gods only knew how long, now she wanted to go explore her world; even if it was a small world for the moment.  
  
She turned the corner and saw natural light, so that had to be the exit; she thought. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go out and take a peek and see if this world has changed much. If anything just the idea of getting fresh air and feeling sunlight appealed greatly, and that quickly became her way to overcome her fear of Piccolo's wrath. She knew he wouldn't be back for some time, since he claimed he'd had somewhere to go, but wouldn't tell her where.  
  
Not that he'd harm me, she thought with a slight superior smirk. He's completely thrown off by me, and has no clue how to handle my presence. I find it amusing the way he'll try to restrain me yet keep his hands off of me. It's as if he's never come across a female before. Of course I was a bit thrown off by him as well, never in a hundred years had I thought there would be another Namek like me on this world. But this could be a good thing; it could be an opportunity to find out what happened to our home world, if the elders have managed to restore balance, and if any of my sisters and brothers survived.  
  
Padding barefooted towards the exit, she shivered slightly. The air was kind of chill, wherever she was at. The light clothing Piccolo and the stranger she had yet to meet called Dende had provided her with was suited for warmer climates. The loose fitting pants that seemed to be cut just for her shape fit snugly around her waist, then flared out a bit, only to taper off to fit once again snugly around her ankles. Her shirt was long sleeved, but made of some light fabric, the cuffs had an exotic look to them, it fit around her wrists, but kind of had an extra long cut with the fabric tapering off down past her hands, something she'd consider formal, the neck of the blouse was set just below her collar bone, and a tear shaped hole was set just above her breasts accentuating her curves. All in all, the outfit was something she loved, it suited her just fine and the coloring was just right to where it didn't clash with her own skin tone. When she'd looked in the mirror she had grinned, somehow Piccolo had found the outfit in the exact same color as her eyes. She privately considered this her favorite outfit out of all the outfits he'd shown up with.  
  
She laughed to herself as she walked along thinking about how flustered the poor brute had been when he'd shown up with a pile of clothing, recalling the incident with more than a little amusement.  
  
"Here, these were brought up for you. I got them from an acquaintance of mine on Earth." Piccolos face was darker than usual, and the scent of sweat tickled Kihann's nostrils.  
  
"Oh, is that so?" She sat up in her bed, not bothering to cover herself up, much to her personal amusement, and Piccolos dismay. "Tell your ak- kwaintince I say thank you the next time you speak with them."  
  
Piccolo nodded and looked away. "You've gotten used to the language; I'm pleased to see that we can at least talk now without trying to decipher what the other is saying. I assume that Dende has helped with that?"  
  
Kihann shrugged her slender shoulders as she slid out of bed, this time taking the sheet with her so to spare Piccolo anymore discomfort; heading to the pile of clothing he'd set down for her and setting to work on pairing them off into outfits. "Mmm. Yes, well this language isn't that difficult to pick up once you get the general idea of it. There are a few words I still cannot comprehend or decipher a definition to, it's a simple language, and yes, Dende has helped me with learning the language."  
  
"Good, it will be easier to ask questions. Please get dressed and I'll be back with something for you to eat and drink." With that Piccolo exited the room, the door closing softly behind him.  
  
Kihann turned the final corner as the came out of the memory and inhaled the wonderful scent of outside. It was a beautiful day, the sun just warm enough to be comfortable, to counter the coolness of the breeze. She focused on what was ahead of her and gasped at the sight.  
  
Endless sky; nothing but endless blue sky, that gradually darkened to the deep indigo color of night curving downwards. If there was one thing that got her into trouble, it was her endless curiosity; and now that curiosity kicked into full force. She laughed softly and headed out into the sun, amazed at the décor of the place. The palm trees lining the main entrance and various potted plants dotted the area attracted her attention first and she spent a long time looking each one over, inhaling the scent of wet dirt, the flowery smell of the various budding plants, and just reveling in the texture of the trunks of the trees.  
  
Kihann then noticed the edge of the Lookout and once again the insatiable curiosity overwhelmed her. She crept to the edge slowly, sensing that the Lookout was far up. She peered over the edge, staring down into great whiteness of clouds, and a faint peek at the Earth below.  
  
Suddenly her vision blurred, and she had a severe bout of dizziness with a hint of nausea; Kihann's arms pin-wheeled as another wave of vertigo struck her, she found herself falling; screaming loudly she tried desperately to grasp for the edge as she tumbled, but was too slow.  
  
I'm going to die, she thought. I'm going to fall forever and die from the fear.  
  
The air whistled around her, filling her ears with a high pitched whine, ripping the breath from her lungs, not even allowing for her to scream. Squeezing her eyes shut, Kihann felt nothing but fear and self pity for doing something so stupid, for allowing her own curiosity to get the better of her.  
  
Just when she thought it was impossible to fall for any longer, that surely she must have hit the ground and gone straight through, she felt two very warm and welcoming arms wrap around her, felt the broad chest against her back.  
  
"Hold on, I've got you." The deep baritone voice of Piccolo nearly shouted above the wind.  
  
They were still descending, but at no where near the rapid, reckless fall that Kihann had experienced. This was more a controlled fall, one that kept them both from being bashed about by the high screaming cold winds of such a high altitude.  
  
Kihann fell limp against the body and sobbed in relief, turning to wrap rubbery feeling arms around Piccolos neck and hold on for dear life. She had honestly thought she was going to die, and so soon after waking up out of what had felt like an eternal slumber. She whispered over and over" ~Tanri Masia.~  
  
Piccolo glanced down at the female as she turned and wrapped her arms around his neck in a death grip. He smirked faintly as he slowed the decent even further, at a height now that it'd be tolerable to speak, and not either freeze to death, or suffer from oxygen deprivation. Coming to a stop some several hundred feet above the ground he leaned back a bit and smirked at her tear streaked face. "I suppose next time you'll listen to mine and Dende's warnings about staying away from the edge of the Lookout? We warned you for a reason Kihann; the winds up there can literally suck you off the edge, and if you're not used to looking from that height, you can experience severe vertigo. That's what happened, am I correct?"  
  
She nodded weakly and swallowed her voice hoarse from crying. "I was just curious, that's all. I didn't think it'd hurt to just look over! But all of a sudden I felt dizzy, sick and like the entire world was swimming."  
  
Piccolo frowned, he was angry with her but amused at the same time. He'd just been waiting for her to do something like this, and he thought they both knew just how damn lucky she was. "You can't fly can you." That was more of a statement than a question.  
  
Kihann shook her head and flushed. "Why should I have learned? I had no reason to do so at home, everything within walking distance, and even then I had people to go and fetch stuff for me."  
  
"Fetch stuff." Piccolo raised a brow ridge, his expression nonplussed.  
  
"Yes." Kihann drug out the answer as if unsure if she should answer or not; she figured she may as well it certainly couldn't hurt anything. "At home, I had people to do things for me. That was before everything got ugly, and things started dying. Then I got sent here."  
  
Piccolo rolled his eyes heavenward. Great, I have a prima- Donna princess on my damn hands. "I see. Here you're going to have to learn to fly if you're going to see anything or get anywhere. I'm not catering to you, or anyone else."  
  
Kihann's eyes narrowed, and she icily replied; "I didn't ask you to cater to me Piccolo. If anything you wouldn't be worthy of catering to me. So don't take that tone with me you. you. whatever."  
  
Piccolo's jaw clenched and he growled softly, "You're going to have to learn to take care of yourself. How about we start with the first lesson; flying." He quick phased out of her grasp and hovered in the air a foot or two away from her.  
  
Kihann shrieked and madly clawed at him to grab onto as she started to fall, eyes wide and pupils retracted in fear. She managed to hook one of Piccolos ankles and dangled by one hand, the grip so tight on the other namek's leg that Piccolo winced as he felt bones protest, and muscles pull in directions they weren't supposed to go.  
  
~Yasaen! Yasaen!~ She dug her nails into his ankle and tried desperately to drag herself up. "Help! Help! Please!"  
  
"Ah, so that's what Yasaen means." Piccolo half bent over to look at the thrashing dangling female off his leg. "Yasaen means help. Got any thing else for me to learn?"  
  
Kihann glared up at Piccolo, and he got the distinct impression that if she could have, she'd have torn his leg off, not that he didn't think she was already trying. ~Pfu ne! Chadou mo kichi m'ka!"  
  
Piccolo couldn't help it, he grinned a bit, "Something tells me that I don't want a translation."  
  
He leaned over and grasped both her wrists, hauling her up so that she dangled by her arms. "Now, I think we need to come to an understanding. This isn't the Planet Namek you remember. I'm not your average Namek; I was born here and grew up here. It's a long story and I don't feel like getting into it right now. But, let's get one thing straight; I'm not here for your entertainment, enjoyment, or to follow your orders. I don't know what kind of life you had before, who you were or exactly why you're here; but I'm not going to be treated like some personal doormat; do you understand me or do I need to get Dende to translate that into something you would understand?"  
  
The whole time she glared at him, teeth bared, eyes narrowed. "Fine; I understand. I'm not stupid or anything."  
  
"Now, why don't we go back up to the Lookout and you can tell me what exactly you're used to, and just why you ended up here on Earth; I have a few other questions you may find personal, but you'll have to deal with it. Then, you can ask me all the questions you want. Does that sound fair?" Piccolo pulled her close to him once more, holding her around the waist, letting Kihann get the circulation back into her arms again. She nodded and he grunted in satisfaction. "Good, I know a place we can go without interruption from Popo and Dende. Or do you want Dende there?"  
  
"No, what I have to say would be between you and me. Perhaps when he's older and if I'm still around I'll tell him." Kihann murmured softly, a bit calmer and complacent. "Why are you so cruel to me?"  
  
Piccolo chuckled faintly as he ascended slowly back to the lookout. "You sound like a former student of mine. He always wondered why I was so mean to him as well. But he soon learned that although it seemed like cruelty at the time, it did eventually teach a valuable lesson, and a lesson that saved his life and others' lives a few times; my own included."  
  
Kihann rested her head against the others chest and frowned a bit in thought. "Hardly seems like a lesson would be learned by dropping someone because you're mad at them."  
  
"I wasn't mad at you, I was frustrated, yes. But not mad. You have a lot to learn Kihann about this place, and I don't think falling off the lookout and going off on your own is the best way to do so." Piccolo made it to the halfway point, quietly noting that Korin and Yajirobi were no where to be seen. He continued on towards the Lookout.  
  
"That was still mean of you to just drop me like that. What if you hadn't caught me? I would have been splattered all over the ground." Kihann mumbled irritably.  
  
Piccolo snorted softly. "Do you trust me that little?"  
  
"What are you talking about? I hardly know you!"  
  
"Good point."  
  
Coming to a stop on the top of the Lookout Piccolo set Kihann down letting her gain her balance back before letting her go fully. "I'll have Popo cut up some fruit for you, and bring water to the library. Follow me, and I'll show you where it's at."  
  
Kihann padded after the taller namek not wanting to argue any more, she was too tired to argue, so instead she asked him a question; "Who was this student you were talking about earlier? The one you said I reminded you of."  
  
Kihann noticed Piccolo kind of winced a little at the question, but was pleased when she heard him inhale to answer. "I met Gohan probably around fifteen, almost twenty years ago. He was probably five when I took him away from his father."  
  
"You took a kid from his father?!" Kihann's mouth dropped in shock at the idea. "Children are sacred to our kind! How could you!"  
  
"Oh don't get all indignant on me Kihann," Piccolo snapped irritably, "You wanted to know, remember? There's more to the story, it mostly involves the saiyajins, an attack on the Earth. I took him to train him, knowing his father would be too soft on the boy, knowing that if someone didn't train him properly that the world could potentially be destroyed. By that time I had gotten comfortable on this planet, and I sure as hell wasn't letting what I thought at the time, some low level primate's piss around with a planet I had wanted for myself. And stop staring at me like I just grew a head out of my back."  
  
Kihann flushed slightly, he hadn't even looked back to see her expression and he already knew. She cleared her throat and waited for him to continue, and eventually he did. "So, I trained him. First I dumped him in the middle of the desert and told him that if he could survive a year and make it home, that I'd train him if he wanted me to, and oddly enough the little brat actually survived. I had a feeling he would, and I knew he had potential that no one else could see. It was so deeply locked with in him that it could only take seeing people he loved hurt to unlock it. I'd seen it before, and knew that with a bit of time and some well placed patience I could get him to that level again. So, he got back home, within yards of his own home when I stopped him and asked if he still wanted to train with me. You know what he said?" Piccolo glanced over his shoulder now.  
  
"What did he say?"  
  
"He said yes. He was literally yards from his home, his family, warm food and the safety of his parents, and he walked away from that. I don't know what he was thinking then. Maybe he was thinking it'd be another adventure, maybe it was his fascination with me that made him go at first. Gods knew he was scared pissless of me the first time I had taken him. Back then he was just a sniveling little brat. A kid who cried at the drop of a lead ball and was worse when you actually hit him, I blamed his mother for that. She was constantly coddling the kid, and desperately tried to hide his saiyajin heritage from the kid like it was a dirty secret. Or, maybe she was trying to hide it from herself. I can't say, Chichi is the last person in the world I'd want to psychoanalyze let alone talk to. But to make a long story short in that chapter, I trained Gohan; and it was odd, I found myself actually liking the kid. I'd even sacrificed my own life for him, taking a hit from another saiyajin that was at least ten times more powerful than Gohan, and nearly four times more powerful than me. So, I died. Then a new threat came. Frieza, I'll explain him sometime when I'm bored enough to regale the tale, I was dead at that point and was training with a smartass god, a monkey, a cricket, two humans, a tri-clops and a clown. Then learned of the planet Namek coming under threat; so I ended up wished back there, it was the first time I'd seen Namek, and I wasn't that impressed. Long story short again, we defeated the bad guy with Goku's help and ended up back here on earth, and here I've stayed since." Piccolo turned the last corner and entered the library, waiting for Kihann to enter before shutting the door.  
  
"There's more to this little story than you're telling me, I know it, I can see it in your eyes, in your body posture, and in the way you avert your eyes from me. What happened to our planet? Why didn't you go back?" Kihann's rapid fire of questions was expected and Piccolo was prepared.  
  
"Because I didn't want to go back, I was born here, and I had no desire to be with people I'd never known, nor did I particularly want to know. They were too different from me, in the way they thought and the way they felt about fighting. We may have been the same species, but the other namek's and I couldn't have been farther from each other in every other aspect; I had no idea what I was until one of the saiyajins had told me during a battle. Besides, I still had work here to do, I knew that Goku wouldn't always be around and Gohan still needed training, and at the time I refused to admit to myself, but I was close to Gohan, and like I said, his father would have handled him with kid gloves. I was one of the few that knew of his hidden potential; even he hadn't realized it till a few years later." Piccolo motioned to the large window indicating that's where he wanted her to sit.  
  
Kihann headed straight for the big plate glass window, finding a sunny spot to get comfortable in; eyes locked onto Piccolo as he took a seat across from her. "So you stayed here because you couldn't relate to your own kind? I suppose that would make sense for someone who'd never known what he was. Again I sense that there's more to this story than you're letting on, but I won't ask." She smiled as Popo soon entered and quietly set down a large plate of various fruits cut and peeled for her, a large decanter of water and two mugs. He smiled happily back at her and departed.  
  
Leaning against the glass Piccolo shrugged his broad shoulders. "Basically, yes. Like I said, I've lived here all my life and to be honest, I plan on dying here. Whether it's from old age, or from a battle, I'm not going to be picky. And whether or not you are accurate in sensing that there is more to this story, I'll let you just hang on that. I've told you all I'm going to for now, right now I want to hear your story. And, I respect your privacy if you feel there's something you can't or don't want to tell me."  
  
"Fair enough, but before we start, can I ask you one question that's been bothering me since I woke up here?"  
  
Piccolo blinked and nodded, "Sure, what is it?"  
  
Kihann glanced to the door to make sure it was clear. "That Mr. Popo, does he ever blink?!"  
  
Piccolo stared at her for a moment then cracked up laughing, the sound echoing in the library. He shook his head, and after a moment answered, "In all the years I've known him? No."  
  
Kihann giggled faintly and reached over to grab a slice of mango, shaking her head slightly, after a moment of amicable silence, she began. 


	6. Bring me to life 6 A few more things lea...

The female namek leaned back against a table leg and stared off over Piccolo's head. Where to begin? Where should she start, and how could she explain her slumber? Kihann wasn't even sure how long she'd been asleep, how long she'd stayed hidden in the caves before she'd been discovered by the humans, and then how long she'd remained in their hands before being put into slumber again. Idly chewing on the dripping piece of fruit, she tilted her head, eyes unfocused, she began;  
  
"I'll start at the beginning as I remember it. I was maybe what would be fourteen or fifteen standard years old when our village had heard rumors of our planet dying. Our elder, and my father didn't believe them, they just thought they were the rumors of young men trying to stir up trouble just for the sake of attention and something to do; you know kind of like the Shepherd who cried wolf. You see, where we were at everything was fine, the trees were sparse yes, the ground a bit dusty, but other than that everything was healthy and whole. Especially the villagers, several couples had children, and all were growing up healthy and strong."  
  
Kihann's eyes unfocused, her mind reaching out to Piccolo's she pulled him into her memories. Piccolo struggled against it, but the underlying emotion in Kihann's mind was one of reassurance. He allowed his mind to be swept away.  
  
(A/N: just for the sake of my sanity and probably yours anything said on Namek is translated to common. I'd rather not have to make up an entire language)  
  
"Look, respected elder, I'm telling you that the village just a few clicks off is falling ill! We have to take precautions! Three of their children have succumbed to whatever sickness is spreading! How long has it been since we've had to bury our children? Except for the few that have been killed by accident or by predators?!" The young namek's face was eager, if not a bit frightened looking. His fist pounded on the table a couple times in nervous anger. "I just had my child no more than a few weeks ago; I don't want to risk my daughters' life not knowing what could be killing us!"  
  
The elder leaned back in his high-backed chair and regarded the young one with a bit of annoyance. "Tarum, I understand your concern, but what can we do? So far three children have died under mysterious circumstances, our healers could not figure out what they died from, and all of a sudden there's an imminent plague? We surely can't just pick up and leave the planet. Where would we go? And who's to say that whatever this is that you and a few others claim can't follow us?"  
  
Tarum shook his head and slapped his palms on the table standing. "This planet is dying Elder Myuin!" Flinging out his arms he took in all those assembled. "We know this, yet we stay here, insistent that we can save our world from the atmospheric changes it's facing! Look out there Myuin; tell me that the storms that come more and more frequently are not preludes to a bigger disaster about to happen?" The young namek turned his attention to the other sitting next to the elder and motioned to him. "What about you Krin? What about your own daughter? Do you have any concerns for Kihann what so ever?"  
  
The one, apparently Krin averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck with a cloth, the stifling heat of the room making it uncomfortable for everyone, not that the conversation hadn't done that already. "My daughter is my concern Tarum, and as you can see she's perfectly fine."  
  
"Sure she's fine now, but what happens in five or six years? What happens when she's paired off with someone, they have a child only to have it become ill or worse yet, still born? As it is now, the head Elder Guru is talking of changes that will need to be made if anyone survives! It won't be long until she's taken by one of the others and off on her own." Tarum glanced over to the younger Namekkian woman, and then quickly glanced back to her father, knowing that Krin wasn't a man who was known for his patience.  
  
The young Kihann watched and listened with all the interest that was typical of someone in their teenage years. She hadn't wanted to come to this boring meeting, of where old men babbled on endlessly about dying fields, violent storms, or worse yet, general every day menial tasks. Tasks she was all too familiar with and would much rather do without, let alone sit here and talk about them. She didn't mind doing her chores, it helped her mother out and if anything gave her something to do while she waited for a few friends to show up so they could sneak off and explore whatever they'd happened to find, or just to have an excuse to get away from her younger siblings who seemed to think that she held all the answers in the universe, or had been deemed village entertainer.  
  
But here she was having been dragged along by her father to this meeting from other villages to sit and listen to various people talk about things she'd rather not think about. She wondered if she should have backed Tarum up, he was after all a friend of hers and before he'd been paired off with some one else, they had been somewhat close, probably closer than what her father would have tolerated. But, she didn't want to be put in the spotlight, as it was her being forced to go with her father was punishment for sneaking off with a couple other friends and camping out in one of the old beast caves. That had earned her a nice boxing around the head and shoulders, not to mention extra chores for the week. She sighed softly, plunking her chin into the cup of her hand, propping her elbow up on the table, trying for the entire world to get the point across to anyone watching that she was bored.  
  
Meanwhile, the older Kihann and Piccolo stood off to the side, out of the way and obviously invisible to the long gone council. Piccolo smirked and shook his head faintly at the entire meeting.  
  
The older Kihann murmured softly. "This was a key meeting; I recall that. I remember father being furious that a youngling like Tarum dared try to usurp the village elders rulings and he felt that the younger ones were calling the elders liars not only behind their backs but to their faces as well. Everyone knew that this world was dying, and that there was little to nothing they could do about it. But the elders were adamant about trying to save our home world."  
  
Piccolo nodded and continued to listen. To him it was both old and new information; he knew that Namek had been a lush green planet, until the atmosphere changed, nearly leaving it a desert, and leaving only one lone Namekkian to carry on. "Well if it makes you feel better you're friend had the right idea."  
  
Kihann shrugged her slender shoulders, watching her younger self trying to squirm and sneak out of the meeting. "Perhaps, or perhaps it was evolution trying to tell us something. But we didn't see it."  
  
The meeting droned on, until finally Krin, sick of the entire thing stormed out of the meeting saying that if the world was going to die, it damn well better hurry up and do it, he was sick of hearing children trying to tell elders who were wiser in the ways of things what to do. The younger Kihann trailed after her father like the obedient child she was supposed to be.  
  
The vision faded to grayness and it left only Kihann and Piccolo standing in the middle of nothing. He stared off into the nothingness for a moment before speaking. "What happened after that?"  
  
Kihann looked up at the other namek and smiled faintly. "More children died, then elderly, and then seemingly healthy adults, my family died with them, first my little sister, then my brother, then my older brother. Come, watch."  
  
Piccolo's mind was tugged at again, and this time he followed along more complacently. The grayness filled in, first with walls and furnishings, faded like seen through a fog. Then finally becoming more solid as the memory in Kihann's mind became clearer, until the entire house was viewable; Piccolo could see that it was just like the other houses he saw on namek, rounded, somewhat squat to the ground, rounded windows that let in little daylight in, forcing the inhabitants to either use other means of light, or to just sit in dimness.  
  
The house reeked of sickness, despite the fact that it was a memory, Piccolo and Kihann could still smell deaths scent in the stifling air of the room. Piccolo's hand unconsciously went up to cover his nose, trying to place a barrier between the stench and his nose. He watched as Kihann went through what looked like a living room, and into a small hallway, and then turning into a room she came to a halt, Piccolo having no choice but to follow.  
  
In the bed he saw a young Namekkian child laid out on the bed, naked and sweating enough to soak the sheets. Here the smell was ten times worse and it was almost enough to make Piccolo turn and leave. Kihann placed a hand on his arm and shook her head.  
  
Another female namek sat by the bed, tirelessly bathing the child's fevered body with a towel dipped in cold water. She looked exhausted, and possibly ill herself, but she refused to rest. The younger Kihann stepped out of a side room and to her mother, gently shaking the woman's shoulder.  
  
"Mother, please go eat and get something to drink. You've been up with Nia all night without sleep or any nourishment of any sort. Go, I'll take care of Nia for the afternoon." The young Kihann tugged on her mothers arm.  
  
Kihann's mother looked up at her daughter with glazed eyes, and allowed them to focus slowly. "I can't, Nia needs me Kihann. Why aren't you at your lessons?"  
  
"Mother, you know that the teacher died a week ago, and that lessons have been cancelled for several weeks now due to all this." Kihann's eyes widened with concern, she noted the slight sheen of sweat, and the faint smell of sickness coming from her mother. Shoving aside the needle of fear that stabbed mercilessly at her heart, she tugged on her mothers arm again, this time successful in getting her to stand. "Come, lay down. I'll take care of Nia, and see that everything is taken care of; I'll go find something for you and Nia to eat."  
  
Her mother nodded wearily, exiting the room; she could be heard talking to no one, and Kihann knew deep down that she was losing her family one member at a time; her father was out now in the fields burying her other siblings. The fields that were once used to grow trees, were now being used to bury the scores of dead, most only marked by simple names and dates they lived and died. Funeral rites skimmed over just cursory blessings and well wishes to the deceased's soul, as to where under normal circumstances a funeral could have lasted days, depending on the status of the person who died.  
  
Kihann sat headed to the cold cellar and retrieved a jug of water and a few star fruits that remained from the family stores. Cutting them up and dividing the water, she headed first to her sisters room, setting the tray down and taking a moment to bathe her little sister in cold water; then going to retrieve the second tray for her mother, she headed to her parents' room. Knocking politely, she received no answer. Frowning a bit, she pushed open the door to find her mothers body half in bed, half on the floor, dropping the tray she ran to her mothers' side, shaking her gently. "Mother, mother I need you to-"  
  
Kihann screamed as her mother rolled limply in her hand falling onto the floor and hitting her head against the bed foot. Her mother face frozen in a demonic grin of pain, stared up at her with deaths eyes.  
  
Piccolo glanced at the older Kihann, and felt a wave of pity for her. He'd seen friends die, but that could never compare to what this girl had gone through. Her entire family dying before her very eyes; doing something he'd never thought he'd catch himself doing, he reached out to place an arm over her shoulder and move her closer to him.  
  
She accepted the contact gratefully, her eyes full of unshed tears. The room dimmed back to the grayness of nothing as she lost control of the memory and broke down crying, she buried her head in Piccolos chest. Piccolo could feel them both being tugged back to the real world, and wasn't too surprised to see when they had resumed their grasp on reality that he really was holding her in his lap.  
  
He didn't know what to say, so he held her while she cried renewed tears of grief, and then take a few more moments to try and regain some composure. It was quite a few moments, and Piccolo bore it all in silence. In all actuality, he was uncomfortable and completely unprepared for this. What was he supposed to do? None of the other fighters had ever cried, and certainly Bulma or Chichi had never come crying to him! He sighed faintly and did his best to comfort her.  
  
As she rested her head in his lap, he gently stroked her head and arm, trying to be soothing, as he worked on calming her, he thought of another problem; Namek was destroyed, the original planet had been long gone, and everyone she would have known and loved would have been dead. Not even the Nameks from her time existed anymore, Guru had been the last, and he'd been dead for over a decade or two now. She was literally the only known female of his species alive, hell; she was the ONLY gendered species of their kind. Everyone else had been created asexual, since it had been up to Guru to keep their race alive, since he'd been the very last survivor of Namek.  
  
How was he going to explain this? In due time, he thought to himself. In time she'll have to learn what exactly happened, and that she's even more different and isolated than ever. But for now she has to grieve and all I can do is be here for her. This actually isn't so bad, he considered silently; it's not too bad at all, not as awkward as I thought it would be. But then again a lot has happened over the past few days that would change ones perspective on things a bit.  
  
"I'm sorry." Kihann's light voice cracked softly as she apologized. "I don't know what came over me."  
  
Piccolo shrugged his shoulders slightly. "You've been through something pretty traumatic, Kihann. You're stuck in a world that's unfamiliar, and hasn't been particularly kind to you, and I'm sure that reliving your past hasn't helped much either. But I have to say thank you."  
  
Kihann blinked as she sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thank you? What would you thank me for?"  
  
Piccolo smiled faintly and turned his gaze out of the window. "I never knew Nameks history, not really, and I'd always been curious as to what happened on the planet."  
  
"Can I ask something? Probably something I'll regret?"  
  
"Sure, I'll answer it if I can, can't guarantee it will be what you want to hear."  
  
Kihann rested her head back in Piccolo's lap. She found she liked the comforting feeling, that feeling that at least something familiar was there, even if she didn't know Piccolo that well, he was at least similar enough for her to relate to and she noticed with distant wonder that he seemed to accept her for who she was, and for her need to be close to something. "Are we the only Nameks left? Is it just you, me and Dende?"  
  
Piccolo chuckled faintly; he had expected the question, and the way she posed it had made it easier for him to answer. For the next few hours he explained everything about what had happened on Namek, with Vegeta, Goku, and Frieza, and his fusion with Nail. He had to explain of course some details such as who they were, and just how everyone got there; but in the end she'd been pleased to know that they had found a new planet to live on, a healthy one and that although she didn't know any of them, she at least felt better knowing that they had survived. "I guess it's better than I had expected Piccolo. I half expected to hear you say that no one was left, and we three were the only survivors."  
  
"No, we're not. Although I don't think you'd be impressed with how Namek is now."  
  
Kihann nodded a bit, her eyes closing as the after crying jag sleepiness crept up on her. "I think I understand. Dende had explained there was no such thing as males or females on Namek anymore."  
  
Piccolo frowned and glanced down at the woman. "So you knew already?"  
  
"Yeah, I did a little. Dende wasn't very talkative about it, he said that I should ask you about all that happened, but he did explain a few things to me, and although its kind of hard to accept, at least I know its not permanent."  
  
Piccolo blinked a few times completely confused. What wasn't permanent? And why had she bothered asking him these things in the first place if Dende had already explained some of it? He asked her both questions.  
  
"I wanted to hear it from you." She stated simply, "And because he also told me about that you and the former guardian of this planet were once the same person in a sense."  
  
"Hnnn, kids got a big mouth." Piccolo snorted softly, but he figured she was bound to find out just about everything about him. "I guess you would have eventually found out anyways, did he tell you the history behind that?"  
  
Kihann nodded, and the other namek was relieved that he wouldn't have to regale the whole tale to her, he was deeply uncomfortable with his past, and everyone who knew him knew that Kami and himself didn't get along. Nor was he comfortable with the fact about his 'fathers' past.  
  
"I guess the question now comes down to, now what?" Kihann spoke softly. "I can't go home, it isn't like anything I used to know, everyone I knew is dead or too old to have remembered me. I obviously can't go and find someone to pair up with, have children and live my life as I was meant to. Dende told me how everyone on Namek was, well, genderless." Kihann glanced over at Piccolo and quickly looked away.  
  
Piccolo's brow ridges rose at the look. "Well, I can't do much to help you in that aspect Kihann." He added as an afterthought, "Nor am I sure I could if I wanted to."  
  
Kihann smirked faintly sensing the older Nameks discomfort. "Pairing, sex and such used to be such an open topic. All I can say is I pity them now, not knowing what they're missing out on."  
  
"Okay, okay, okay. I do not want to hear anymore." Piccolo grimaced and held up his hands.  
  
Kihann grinned maliciously as she sat up and faced a flushed Piccolo. "You know you could change yourself to have a gender. I mean, you are from the planet Namek originally and you weren't one of Guru's offspring, not technically anyways. Oh, it'd probably take a few years for you to change your physiology, and being genderless wasn't too uncommon in my time; several of the others opted to be genderless rather than pairing up with someone they hated, or couldn't find someone suitable at the time."  
  
"OKAY! ENOUGH!" Piccolo's face was a deep shade, and he fidgeted uncomfortably.  
  
Kihann fell over laughing, holding her sides as peals of laughter echoed through the library; loud enough for Dende to poke his head in and give Piccolo a curious look. Piccolo just shook his head and gave the indication that he didn't want to talk about it. This was fine with Dende, who had happened to overhear half the conversation anyways, closing the door, Dende walked down the hallway laughing to him self.  
  
"You did that on purpose." Piccolo growled accusingly.  
  
"Of course I did! You should have seen the look on your face as I was describing everything to you; it was a cross between morbid fascination and out right embarrassment!" Kihann sat up, wiping tears from her eyes, this time the tears were from laughing.  
  
"Isn't it past your bed time or something?" Piccolo stood stiffly, and headed for the exit. "Shouldn't you find something to do at least?"  
  
Kihann grinned more widely as she stood and followed Piccolo out the door and down the hallway. "Well, now that you do mention it, I probably could use a bath. Care to scrub my back?"  
  
Piccolo snorted and retorted with, "Not a snowballs chance in hell kid."  
  
Kihann giggled and skipped off to her rooms, pleased with herself. 


	7. Bring me to life 7 Bulma makes a visit

Weeks passed without incident on the Lookout, Piccolo teaching Kihann about earth, the inhabitants and about the various threats it had faced in the past. He'd told them about the humans, and about the different ways of lives they lead. Kihann was completely fascinated by the humans and after a little bit of practice and some guidance from Dende, she was able to watch the earth as things happened from up on the look out. She spent countless hours sitting on the edge just watching, sometimes her expression one of loneliness.  
  
Dende often observed her from the various balconies that adorned the Lookout Palace and more often than not felt sorry for the woman. He knew that she and Piccolo had become close, but Piccolo only allowed so much closeness before he shut himself off to those he cared about. He noticed that Kihann was the opposite; she had no qualms in telling Piccolo, Dende or even Mr. Popo what she was feeling, why she felt that way and sometimes even going as far as to saying what caused her to feel certain ways.  
  
Dende and Piccolo sometimes didn't know how to handle these situations a lot of the time. Both were used to other Nameks; the Nameks Dende and Piccolo had known were quiet, reserved, and very private about their lives. Dende recalled Nail and a few of the others being more open and expressive, but even then it was only reserved for special moments.  
  
Both adults stood at the doorway to the palace one evening, watching Kihann go through her daily ritual of circling the outer rim to find a comfortable place to watch. Both watched in silent fascination, wearing identical expressions on their faces; the expression being one of curiosity, as she circled the Lookout twice, pausing occasionally to check the location before starting over again  
  
"I really don't get it." Dende commented softly.  
  
Piccolo shook his head and shrugged. "I don't either but apparently she has some sort of system that only she understands."  
  
Dende chuckled faintly and watched as Kihann made yet another circuit around the Lookout. "I think she watches more than I do. Maybe I should back down as guardian and give her the position."  
  
Piccolo snorted watching Kihann. "Having a female as a guardian of Earth would be comparable to having Vegeta as the spokesperson for the humane society."  
  
Dende stifled a chuckle, not sure if Kihann was paying enough attention to overhear them. "Piccolo, that's a bit sexist, now isn't it?"  
  
"Not at all, I've watched Chichi and Bulma in their daily lives, thus proves my theory that any female gods of days past are all dead because the males got sick of hearing them bitch over stupid stuff. They'd fuss about where to put a solar system, not liking the location of at least five different places, the four moons would clash with the two suns, the green of one planet just wouldn't look well with the grey of another. And gods forbid the species they created. They'd have to be aesthetically pleasing, and they would all get along, never a war, and chances are, males would be subservient and docile."  
  
Dende's face screwed up in poorly contained laughter, leaning against a wall, arms wrapped around his mid-section, tears squeezing out of his eyes. Piccolo smirked superiorly, pleased with him self for having a rare moment of humor.  
  
Meanwhile Kihann gave up her search for the perfect spot to sit and headed towards the two. Her expression was a bit stormy looking and both Nameks sensed that she was about to request something, expecting it granted or throw a fit. "I want to go to earth, please?"  
  
Dende blinked a couple times and looked to Piccolo. Piccolo frowned a bit, "Where would you want to go?"  
  
"I don't care! I'm bored! I want to meet people, and see places." The Nameks blue eyes were pleading as she gripped Piccolos arm and looked between the two. "There has to be something to do other than sit up here and stare down at the planet all day!"  
  
Piccolo shook his head vehemently, "No. We can go down and I can show you some places, but there's no way in hell I'm getting near a city. You fail to understand Kihann, these humans have a tendency to dislike anything different from them; and with good reason, they've been attacked by things that they'd consider monsters, and I for one don't feel like having the military forces of the world called out on us because you feel like trying to meet people."  
  
Kihann's mouth thinned to a thin line, obviously not liking the answer, she glanced to Dende, who wisely averted his gaze. She pursed her lips more tightly and spoke in an even tone. "At least take me someplace I might enjoy. What about your friends Piccolo? Take me to meet one of them."  
  
"First of all Kihann, I don't have friends. I fought along side some people, and helped out a few times. Everyone I knew has gone their own ways, and I really have no desire to see anyone I used to know Kihann."  
  
"You're so, so, so, Anti-social! You know that? You never want to talk about yourself, or talk about anything you've done, or go down below! I'm bored up here Piccolo! If I knew that being awake was going to be like this, I never would have called for help!" Kihann shoved past the two and stormed off into the palace.  
  
Dende cleared his throat, his deep voice really reminding Piccolo of Nail and just how grown up the kid had gotten. "You know, she has a point Piccolo. Now, now hear me out before you get mad. Please, just think from her point of view, she's stuck up here with us day after day, with nothing to do but roam these halls, and talk to us. We're not the greatest of conversationalists, we barely understand her, just like she barely understands us. We're a complete enigma to her and vice versa."  
  
Piccolo sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, he didn't want to admit to Dende that the kid was right. He somewhat understood how boring it could get up here, and how isolated it was. Kami had understood that quite well, and even though he'd been devoted to his life as a guardian, even Kami had found himself occasionally going to Earth to wander a bit when the mood struck him. Even Dende had admitted a couple times to wandering around the planet when he got too restless. "Okay, okay. Both of you harping on me like a pair of house wives. Fine I'll take her below and show her some of the rural areas. Last thing I want is anyone knowing she exists."  
  
Dende nodded and glanced back to the palace doors. "Just show her the oceans or something, something she'd like. There are lots of places to take her without human interaction."  
  
Piccolo turned and headed into the Palace without another word; he sought out her faint, odd ki signature instead of searching for her room by room. He pinpointed her in the library. I should have figured, he thought; she practically lived in the library. Opening the door he leaned against the marble door frame and watched her as she sulked by the big glass window. Clearing his throat he watched her jump, but made no other indication that she was listening, but Piccolo knew she was. "I suppose it wouldn't kill me to show you a few places, and" Piccolo hesitated a moment as she turned to face him. "I also suppose, if we happen to run into someone I know, I can introduce you."  
  
The way she had reacted Piccolo would have been happier to have not experienced. He had never realized she could move so damn quickly! But suddenly there she was, blue eyes wide and arms around his neck. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"  
  
Her lips connected with his in a quick kiss, and before he even realized what was happening, she'd darted down the hallway, and was gone outside. Piccolo stood there, looking completely stunned, before he realized just what had happened. He blinked a few times and shook his head muttering; "I really don't get her." Before walking out and following in Kihann's wake.  
  
Kihann was dressed and more than ready to go by the time Piccolo had caught up with her. She wore a light white cape, a purple loose fitting top that cut off at the mid-riff, baring the light pink skin on her belly, matching Arabic type pants, a style typical among female Nameks from her time. She smoothed out her outfit, fidgeting with the light head covering, just a simple piece of cloth tied up and over her head, the ends trailing down her back. She grinned at both namek's, giving the look of 'well, coming?' All in all, she looked fantastic, and it gave both of the boys an eyeful of well accentuated curves.  
  
Dende stared openly at the girl as she continued to fuss with her clothing, his tone just above a whisper, and full of wonderment. "Kind of makes you wonder just exactly what Guru was thinking when he created us asexually huh?"  
  
"He was thinking of saving the planet of drooling hormonal teenagers." Piccolo commented as he walked by the guardian, swatting him on the back of the head as he passed by, then grinning in satisfaction as he got an 'ow' out of the kid.  
  
Kihann rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, arms behind her back, trying to be patient as Piccolo and Dende exchanged words, and Piccolo shared a cuff to the back of the guardians head. She grinned and waved to the two. "Hurry up Piccolo! C'mon!"  
  
Piccolo sighed, resigned to his fate of playing tour guide to the girl, approaching the edge He was grateful that in the past weeks, she'd learned to fly. "Come on, I'll take you to one of the beaches I used to take Gohan to when he was a kid."  
  
Kihann grinned happily as she bolted off the edge, not bothering to wait for Piccolo. Piccolo cast a backwards glance to Dende, who just offered a slight wave and a grin as Piccolo jumped off the edge and followed Kihann. Catching up to the woman they flew along in silence until at around the halfway point; Piccolo felt a familiar ki signature, and soon spotted a small plane heading upwards. "Kihann we have to go back to the Lookout!" He fairly shouted above the wind. "There's about to be visitors and it may be important!"  
  
Kihann eyed the plane warily and nodded before reversing her course and heading back up; Piccolo trailed after her, not looking at all happy; if she'd seen Piccolo's face that unhappiness would have turned to worry. She continued to glance behind her as they both raced up to the Lookout, noting that the plane and whoever was inside were getting closer.  
  
Landing next to Piccolo she half walked half jogged towards the entrance before she was stopped by Dende. "Wait up Kihann, I have a feeling this visit may have something to do with you."  
  
Kihann glanced to Piccolo who stood next to Dende with a grim expression. "Why so grim you guys? Its just visitors! I mean geeze, this is an opportunity."  
  
"Or a bad sign," Piccolo commented darkly. "First of all it's Vegeta and his wife Bulma. Bulma is the one who helped me locate you. Like Dende said, this could possibly have a lot to do with you. I will warn you, Vegeta is not a nice person; and if anything he'll do what he can to piss you off. My suggestion is to ignore what he says and pretend he doesn't exist."  
  
Kihann shifted on her feet uncomfortably, glancing over her shoulder as the small two man plane landed on the Lookout; a man with a sour expression on his face stepped out of the passenger side, and a woman with short blue hair stepped out of the pilots' side, carrying a packet with her. Both stopped and stared as they caught an eye full of Kihann.  
  
Vegeta's expression was one of amusement as his eyes slid over Kihann's obviously female body, and then over to Piccolo. "So, after all these years you finally manage to find something to entertain yourself with, huh namek?"  
  
Kihann narrowed her eyes, she didn't like the little man, and he reminded her of some of the humans from the lab. Her fists clenched tightly at her sides, but took heed of Piccolos previous advice and kept her mouth shut. Piccolo noticed the girls stiff posture and moved in front of her.  
  
"Shut your mouth Vegeta, when you're on the Lookout you'll treat those here with the respect that this place requires." Piccolo snapped at the short saiyajin, taking on a somewhat defensive stance. "If you can't at least have some semblance of manners up here then I can happily toss your ass off of here. Now what do you want?"  
  
"I don't want anything you idiot namek. Bulma made me come along on this little field trip. Ask her what she wants." Vegeta turned away from the group and stalked off to the edge of the Lookout.  
  
Kihann spoke up softly from behind Piccolo, speaking in her native language. ~Quite the little asshole isn't he? That thing always allowed to run loose off its leash or can his female not control him?~  
  
Dende choked back laughter and hurried inside to fetch Mr. Popo before he got nailed by Vegeta. Piccolo suppressed a smirk and a laugh, responding in somewhat broken Namekkian; ~No, that's Vegeta, a saiyajin, the majority of them are alright. But this one here is a special case. He's a prince, of an entire race of saiyajins. Namely one full blooded saiyajin, four half blood saiyajins and ruler of a planet that was destroyed. All in all, it's made him a bitter ass. That and he hates us, probably because we survived Frieza's attacks and his species didn't.~  
  
Vegeta glowered over his shoulder and snarled. "If you're going to talk about me fool namek, at least have the courtesy to call me an ass to my face. Or wait, I forgot, you lack the skill and power to take me on."  
  
Piccolo barked a laugh, a rather nasty sounding cruel laugh that made Kihann shiver slightly, she glanced up at the larger namek and shivered again, noticing that Piccolo wore a cruel grin, one revealing fangs. "Any time you want to spar Vegeta, and not worry about getting your ass kicked too badly come up here; after all Goku's proven who's the stronger."  
  
"Pah, fuck you namek." Vegeta turned away from Piccolo knowing if he continued the arguing he'd find himself out of Bulma's good graces, and sleeping in the guest room.  
  
Piccolo smirked and looked to Bulma; "You obviously didn't come here for conversation. So what is it?"  
  
Bulma cleared her throat and glanced from Kihann to Piccolo. "How about you introduce us to your friend, please Piccolo, and take us inside someplace cool?"  
  
Piccolo nodded and motioned for Kihann to go on a head, and then followed behind the girl. Bulma cast a glance back at Vegeta before heading inside. Once inside she found the two Nameks in a sitting room of sorts, Kihann sitting on a pile of pillows and Piccolo taking his usual stance next to her. Both looked tense, and sat down on a chair.  
  
Piccolo cleared his throat and awkwardly introduced the two. "Bulma, this is Kihann, Kihann this is Bulma. Bulma is one of the humans that lives down below, and was the one who helped me find you."  
  
Kihann mumbled a soft hello to the woman suddenly unsure and nervous about this whole situation. The man had already unnerved her, and this woman staring only made it worse.  
  
Bulma smiled warmly at the girl sensing her discomfort. "It's nice to meet you Kihann, and don't let my husband bother you. He's just being his usual self and if Piccolo told you anything about him, I'm sure he probably told you to ignore anything he says. It's finally nice to meet what had Piccolo so worked up, and I'm really glad that things worked out."  
  
"This.. Isn't a social call, is it." Kihann murmured softly as she hugged her knees to her chest.  
  
Bulma nodded, chewing on her lip. "A general stopped by Capsule Corp a few days ago. He wasn't a very nice man, and it took Vegeta threatening to kill him to get him to leave. They had security cameras in the lab Piccolo, and they got some very close up still photos of you. They also recall you from the tournaments and as being one of the ones who fought against Cell. They also knew you had ties with Vegeta and with Goku. Chichi called in a tizzy, saying that army men show up at her door wanting to talk to Goku and Gohan. They're looking for you and Kihann both Piccolo, they're fully armed and looking for their property."  
  
Kihann seemed to shrink into the pillows and whimpered softly. The room suddenly seemed small, cold and dark; both Piccolo and Bulma's attention were solely focused on her and she didn't like it.  
  
"She can't go back to them Bulma. They abandoned her once, and this time chances are they'll kill her. They wouldn't understand what she could mean to our race, and I highly doubt they would care." Piccolo spoke up softly, his voice betraying his emotions to Bulma, placing a hand on Kihann's shoulder reassuring the girl that everything would be okay; "They left her, and in all honesty, they had no right to take her, nor did they have any right doing what they did to her."  
  
Bulma shook her head, standing and pacing as she spoke. "I'm not disagreeing with you Piccolo, but these people don't view that in the same light as us. To them, she's nothing more than a lab experiment that escaped and you're just a bonus. Don't look so shocked Piccolo, they've seen the footage of the Cell games, and they do recall the previous tournaments, the one where you went up against Goku; remember that? You and he destroyed the damn ring, which was the fight that ended the tournaments till Cell came along. To them, you are one hell of a catch. Just think of the possibilities they could do with you and Kihann. Your power levels, regeneration skills, the ability to heal yourselves when absolutely necessary, your stamina alone in a battle would be worth the man power and money it would take to bring you down. I wasn't going to tell you guys' this, but they offered Capsule Corp unlimited access to their resources and close to five hundred million zeni to help bring you guys in. That was about the time Vegeta told the general to get out or they'd be finding parts of him somewhere across the ocean. To say the least, father is quite upset, and Vegeta wanted to destroy the damn planet. You know he doesn't offer to kill things just for anyone."  
  
Piccolo glanced down at Kihann, he could tell she was about to cry and that didn't particularly appeal to him. But he also knew that Kihann needed to hear this as well. She needed to realize the seriousness of this situation, and Bulma was the best one to do it. She never beat around the bush, nor did she try and honey coat a situation. "So what do we do Bulma? Turn ourselves in? I'm not becoming a lab experiment, and I'm not turning Kihann over to them and neither can we live up here for the rest of our lives. That's just as bad as keeping us prisoner."  
  
"I don't' want to go back." Kihann spoke up quietly, her tone almost pleading.  
  
Bulma's expression softened as she moved to kneel next to Kihann. "Look, Kihann. I can promise you that all of us will do what we can to make this all go away. You've got some powerful protectors up here, with Dende and Piccolo; and that's not including Goku and his kids, Vegeta and my son. We take care of our own Kihann; and even though you've not been formally introduced to the others yet, and my idiot husband acts like he hates everyone, they'll protect you and Piccolo both. Not that Piccolo would have any problems with the military."  
  
Piccolo stood and listened to Bulma try and soothe Kihann; having no idea what else to do. He was deeply disturbed by this new revelation, and this certainly made things more difficult, not only for himself, but for his friends. The entire situation had put his friends and himself into a situation that could potentially be volatile. He knew that the military had a way of making peoples lives a living hell, not only personally, but financially as well. If they knew of his and Gohans friendship, Gohan could suddenly find himself without a job, Chichi could find her lands taken away for no apparent reason. They knew about his connection with Capsule Corp. now and that could spell disaster for the Briefs and their inventions.  
  
"And don't worry about us Piccolo." Bulma's voice broke the namek from his thoughts. "All of us are aware of the situation, and we're all taking precautions. Once I had Gohan explain to Chichi what had happened she calmed a bit. She's still not happy, but then you know Chichi, she's not happy unless she has someone to rant at, or bitch about. You just happen to be her favorite subject. I had no choice but to tell them that you had rescued someone from the army and their experiments, I didn't specify what or who; and that made everyone feel better."  
  
Piccolo frowned a bit and coughed faintly, feeling awkward. "I guess I owe you quite a bit for covering my ass. Thanks for giving us a warning, although I have no idea what we're going to do to handle this, but as usual we'll figure out something."  
  
Kihann all this time just listened, inwardly feeling like this was all her fault. She had gotten Piccolo involved, had called to him, and thusly setting the ball in motion for all this to happen. Toying with her cape end, considering her options; she could just turn herself into them, possibly giving Piccolo the chance to escape and placate the men. But she didn't want to go back, she knew what they'd do to her, what they'd subject her to, and it wasn't guaranteed that they'd stop hunting for Piccolo, after all the military now thought they had a pair and the potential for the genetic manipulations they had wanted in the first place. Her other option was to just run for it and hope for the best. She didn't like that option, but it was one of the best so far. Or, she could just stay with Piccolo and Dende, trusting that they would figure out what to do. She shoved away the fear that stabbed at her chest mercilessly and stood, smoothing her cape. "The only thing to do now is wait it out for as long as we can and as Piccolo has said, we'll figure something out. Bulma, I'm sorry you got dragged into this; it was never my intention to start any of these problems for you or your family, or for your friends."  
  
Bulma chuckled and lightly patted Kihann's arm. "If there's one thing you're going to learn while staying with us, and more importantly staying with Piccolo up here on the Lookout is that stuff follows us no matter who it is and where they go. It's kind of a rule of ours; you can't be a part of our group unless you bring chaos, and possible destruction with you."  
  
Piccolo chuckled faintly, adding; "And you have to be responsible for Krillin's death at least once."  
  
Bulma grinned, shaking her head, "Piccolo that wasn't very nice."  
  
"The truth rarely is Bulma."  
  
Bulma rolled her eyes and focused on Kihann for a moment. "I bet you're bored out of your skull up here with nothing to do but talk to these goofballs. I don't think it'd do any harm for you to come to Capsule Corp for a while and learn the ways of us damnable humans." Bulma laughed faintly and winked at Piccolo's startled expression. "That's if your 'father' here will let you."  
  
Piccolo snorted and glowered turning away, "I'm sure as hell not her father, and I trust Vegeta enough to not blow her into oblivion if she asks him something, I also trust you to keep her safe if anything were to happen. Besides, I should get in contact with Gohan and possibly Goku to talk to them about this whole fiasco, and I'd prefer to do it without Kihann around."  
  
Kihann narrowed her eyes, jerking to stand up and face him with an evil look. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!?"  
  
"It means I don't want you drawing their attention away from me. The only Nameks those two have seen are the ones on New Namek, Dende and myself. Goku is easily distracted enough as it is, he's distracted by coins, you'd be a lot worse and I really don't think you could tolerate his questions, or his staring. Gohans marginally better, but I have to go to the city to see him, and it'll be risky enough just getting into the city unseen alone, let alone with you there. Remember they're looking for us both." Piccolo faced the angry woman with a stern gaze. "I bailed you out once, and I really don't feel like taking on an entire army just to bail you out again." With that said, Piccolo exited the room, letting Bulma and Kihann stand there alone.  
  
Bulma's brows rose in quiet contemplation before commenting; "You know, I think he likes you."  
  
Kihann snorted softly folding her arms over her chest, watching Piccolo disappear. "I hardly think that you could place him and the word like in a sentence together."  
  
"No, really; it's not often that Piccolo actually opens up to people. Gohan's been the only person so far that's gotten to get him to smile let alone speak, and just by watching you two interact is proof alone that he's becoming something that none of us thought he'd become. But anyways, let's head to my plane; Vegeta can fly his sorry butt home."  
  
Kihann allowed herself to be led along by the strange out going human and offered a faint smile to Dende as she passed by him, he offered her nothing more but a smile and that he hoped she enjoyed herself.  
  
Piccolo meanwhile launched off the Lookout, headed for Gohans place, not liking the task ahead of him. 


	8. Bring me to life 8

Hands pressed against his sides, cold, clinical hands touching, grabbing, and prodding. He couldn't see, he could only feel, and even then it was as if he was feeling all this happen through a thick rubber sheet; and worst of all, he couldn't stop it. The feeling of being touched went away, but he could sense that the owners of those hands were still present. He couldn't figure out why he couldn't see, until he realized that wherever he was at was pitch black.  
  
Piccolo couldn't recall how he'd gotten into this situation, nor could he recall just exactly what had happened to get him into this mess. What he did remember was that he'd talked to Bulma about the military wanting Kihann, that he'd come down to Earth to speak to Gohan about the situation; and that's when everything went blank. Except he had never gotten to see Gohan, hadn't even made it near the city.  
  
But he couldn't remember what had happened, nor could he recall how he'd ended up blacking out. What he did know is that he ached from the top of his head down to the soles of his feet. He couldn't even recall feeling this sore before; and it bothered him deeply.  
  
He struggled to sit, and found that his limbs just refused to work; he felt that they were free, and that his legs were unbound. Again he heard the light breathing of several people, sensed their tenseness, and could smell the sweat of warm bodies.  
  
Where the hell am I? Piccolo gave up trying to sit up, and just lay there trying to figure out his next course of action. Okay, I was heading to Gohans, the city was right within sight, I remember that much. But then it goes black. What the hell happened!? How come I can't recall what hit me?  
  
A low whisper reached his ears, and Piccolo strained to catch any thing he could; a hint of who they were, and why he'd been brought him here. But the more he listened, the more he realized he couldn't understand what they were saying, this disturbed him greatly and he redoubled his efforts to get on his feet.  
  
A hand pressed down on his back, and he half grunted, half growled when he realized that whoever it was had a severe advantage of him. He had no power what so ever. A moment of panic flooded through him when he realized that he was nothing short of defenseless in a strange place, with people he didn't know, and had no idea where he was even at. His other thought was that he had no way of letting anyone know where he was at.  
  
"Listen, friend; I wish to not harm you, but if you continue with your struggling, I will have to render you unconscious once more and I would prefer you to speak to us than just lay there, no?" The voice was thick and heavily accented and it was obvious that the man holding him down was well muscled, and trained to do his job.  
  
Piccolo gritted his teeth, having to concentrate on talking. "Who are you?" It came out sounding like 'oo rrr oo', but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.  
  
"My name is Trask, friend and I'm pleased to see that you speak the same language. I wasn't sure before." A faint chuckle echoed in the darkness before he continued; "After all aliens are not well known for their grasp of the common language. But I must say I'm pleased to see that you're not only capable of speech, but able to comprehend higher thought processes, things that take speech and cognitive thinking." Piccolo snorted softly and struggled a bit to breath, the man was supremely heavy and the namek wondered if this guy was even human. He wasn't about to bluff his way out of this situation, at least not until he figured out just exactly where he was. Piccolo relaxed, figuring that nothing had harmed him greatly yet, and it never hurt to listen and learn until he could do something about it. "Again I ask who you are."  
  
The man named Trask chuckled faintly and leaned back, letting the creature go. Trask knew that the creature had no means of escape, and it couldn't use its power to hurt them. He had seen to that. "The name is Trask like I said old fellow. I think what you mean to ask is what I'm going to do with you, what you are here for, and most importantly what part do I play in the grand scheme of things."  
  
Again Piccolo grunted, it was as close to an acknowledgement he was about to give. Trask continued at the creatures assumed grunt of acknowledgement. "I'm a special operations soldier, my duty as it were, is to gather information and evidence of alien life forms. Which, you happen to be, as well as the little lady you've been hiding. Or thought you were hiding."  
  
The voices Piccolo heard earlier murmured in amusement at the accented mans comment; Piccolo narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the comment, Trask grinned in the dark as he leaned back on his heels. "Now, how about a bit of light; it might do us all a bit of good instead of wallowing in the dark like a bunch of moles."  
  
At Trask's mention of light, a soft glow emanated the room, allowing Piccolo the chance to see his captors faces. He tried once again to sit up, to get rid of that feeling of vulnerability, but Trask once again pressed down on his back; which Piccolo only now realized was bare.  
  
"Now, now; don't go sitting up too soon old fellow. You've been fairly drugged up and well sitting up can have some serious consequences to your equilibrium; as in you'll end up pukin' all over the place and passing out all over again." Trask's tone was amused, he admired this creature; it had guts, and he liked things with guts.  
  
"Now as I was saying;" Trask shifted so that he could get a better look at the creatures face, and the creature could get a better look at him. Piccolo's eyes took in the others appearance, and to say the least he was some what impressed. He never knew that humans could be so large. Trask was probably close to six and a half feet tall, muscled like a pit bull, and probably capable of stopping large vehicles with his face. This, to the Namek looked like it had more than once, he was scarred heavily, and the only thing that drew the attention away from the face was the hair. It was stark white, even the Grand Kai's hair looked dirty in comparison to this mans own hair. He came back as he realized that Trask was still talking. "Your name is Piccolo, we've gathered quite a bit of information on you and your associates. You don't seem surprised by this news."  
  
"Why should I be? The army, military, whatever you are have a reputation for keeping an eye on things that could potentially be more powerful than them, my friends would give you cause for worry." Piccolo was grateful that his speech was returning, and didn't sound so slurred. "My friends have had to clean up the messes that have shown up in the past, when you guys couldn't handle it."  
  
Trask bristled at the comment but then dismissed it. Of course the Namek would try and get a rise out of him, he was baiting the man and Trask was far too intelligent than to rise to it. "Ah, but what you fail to admit is that our planet has been threatened numerous times because of you and your friends. You cannot deny that Piccolo, nor can you deny the fact that you and your associates have caused severe damage to not only this planets property, but to the people as well. So you could be a bit more gracious and try to see from out point of view on this."  
  
Piccolo snorted softly. "What point of view would that be? You haven't told me anything that I want to know, and only given me information you think will placate me."  
  
Trask and the others gathered there (Which Piccolo still couldn't see in the dim room) laughed faintly. Trask shrugged his broad muscle bound shoulders grinning faintly. "Welcome to the military Namek."  
  
Piccolo blinked, startled at the man. How had he known? Trask grinned even more roughly patting the Nameks cheek. "Oh yes, I know what you are, have known for quite some time. I have an entire network of informants; I have people who can gather information almost simply by picking at someone's thoughts."  
  
"Hnnn, great for you, shouldn't be surprised really; since I assume that you're one of the ones responsible for Kihann's original capture, and imprisonment. I'm sure she managed to tell you what she is, among a few other things." Piccolo resigned himself to lying on the floor a bit longer, he was feeling stronger, and whatever drug they had given him was slowly wearing off.  
  
"Well, yes old fellow you are correct in that. Although I have to say, I was quite a bit younger then!" Trask laughed like the two had been best of friends sharing a well known joke.  
  
"Who are the rest of these idiots who think they're lurking in the shadows?" Piccolo inclined his head to the dark corner of the room.  
  
Trask stood and motioned for someone to step forward, by now Piccolo could at least sit up with aid from the wall. Leaning against it he watched with wary eyes as a man of around fifty years of age stepped forward, a tall straight backed man who looked no happier to be there than Piccolo did. Trask tilted his head at the man as he made introductions; "This is the good Doctor San-Yi Murashi. He was the doctor that took care of our dear Kihann; probably a little older than Kihann may recall, but still alive and kicking, but still very much around."  
  
Murashi gave Piccolo a curt nod; the man was obviously aging, but still had the air of one that was young in spirit. Murashi stood considerably shorter to Trask, probably stood around five foot six, and probably weighed an entire one hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet. He offered Piccolo a hand, and then quickly took it back when he realized that the Namek wouldn't shake it, but couldn't shake it. "I'm as he said, San-Yi. I apologize for all of this, if I had known what my experiments would have caused in the way of damages and in ruining peoples' lives, I'd have never started them. Nor," San-Yi cast a baleful look back over his shoulder before continuing, "Would I have agreed to what I did all those years ago."  
  
Piccolo shrugged, for all appearances he seemed to be nonchalant about the whole situation; as if he had nothing better to do than be kidnapped by some countries military and had gods only knew what done to him. "I assume you're here against your will then as well?"  
  
Trask chuckled as San-Yi nodded, responding. "Yes, I am. Tell me, is Kihann alright?"  
  
"She's probably a lot better off than you or I at the moment, yeah." Piccolo noted that the man looked relieved, and wondered if maybe he hadn't cared for Kihann the way a father would for a child, the same way he'd cared for Gohan years ago.  
  
Trask chuckled again, drawing their attention to him for the moment. "Pardon me, but I still have some more introductions to make." He motioned for another to approach; another man stepped forward, dressed in a full military outfit. "This is General Mauston; he's in charge of the Special Forces team."  
  
Piccolo immediately hated this man, there were few people Piccolo could get an automatic impression of but this man just emanated darkness. He was short, portly, his face reminded Piccolo of a pigs face, even his ears were set a bit high on his head and he could have sworn that the tips even folded over. The large man puffed his way over and cleared his throat, Piccolo smirked, he knew he could probably make this mans life a living hell if he so chose.  
  
Mauston regarded the Namek with shrewd eyes. To the General he saw quite a bit of potential in the creature, but he had a feeling the stupid beast would be difficult. Clearing his throat he wheezed; "You're quite a catch, I have to give Trask here our appreciation in apprehending you. I've seen you in the tournaments when I was a younger man, and then later on when you went against that Cell fellow. You also caused us no little amount of concern when you took Kihann from our storage facility. But, it's all ended well now hasn't it?" A malicious grin spread across Mauston face, and Piccolo had to look away, the General was just too hideous to look at when he grinned.  
  
Piccolo felt nauseous and light headed, and looking at the General made it worse. "What makes you think I'm willing to cooperate, pig-boy? Your compliments are not going to make me more complacent, nor are they going to win me to your side. Remember you're the one who's holding me against my will, planning only god knows what you're miniscule little brain can think of all in the hopes of having a better soldier. You're cages, rooms, and whatever else here will probably do little to keep me from remaining long. As for things ending well," Piccolo shrugged and grinned toothily at the man, "We'll just have to see about that."  
  
Mauston narrowed his eyes at the mouthy thing and sneered. "Yes, we will."  
  
After Mauston walked away, Piccolo was introduced to various staff members. He barely paid any attention; these people were inconsequential, pointless. If anything, these people were just casualties waiting to happen. He noted who had what attitude towards him, what their level of fear was towards him, and importantly what titles they held. Piccolo figured he could at least cause these people some grief before he grew sick and bored with the entire thing and either kill them, or escape. Piccolo figured this would be a good opportunity to learn a bit about what Kihann went through and if possibly there were other non-humans around.  
  
The others left after they were introduced except for Trask. To Piccolo he seemed to be in charge of this little operation, even though the General was obviously in charge by rank.  
  
Trask leaned against a wall, lighting a cigarette, flicking the spent match stick to the floor. Piccolo watched him with a half bored expression. Well, he thought, may as well get started with this little dance. "So, tell me Trask, you plan on giving me my clothes back, or is this an attempt to humiliate the new comer?"  
  
Trask laughed faintly, smoke exhaling from his nostrils. "Well you see it's like this; the General there, he sees aliens as well, non-human."  
  
"My, isn't he ever the perceptive one." Piccolo smirked. "But I get your meaning. Don't let those different have anything that could humanize them. Am I correct?"  
  
Trask nodded. "Something like that yes. That and well, we had to make sure you were not carrying any weapons on you, plus you did have to be sanitized before you entered this room."  
  
Now it was Piccolo's turn to laugh, he noticed that the sound of it didn't echo in the room and the deepness of his voice actually startled Trask. "Sanitized, amusing, that really is. Chances are I'm probably more sanitary than the lot of you put together. But we're not here to compare bathing habits now are we?"  
  
"I think I could learn to like you Piccolo, I really do. It's an awful shame that we've had to meet under such circumstances." Trask sounded anything but sympathetic, even though he tried his hardest to. "But in this business, you have to be brutal, heartless and, well making friends with those that you hunt for a living kind of puts a damper on friendships."  
  
"I doubt we'd have ever been friends Trask. No matter what circumstances we would have met in. You're a ferret, a weasel; you are the mighty white hunter by night and coffee boy to the General by day. Chances are you've only got this job because of Kihann and myself; after all how many aliens make it publicly known that they exist here? Probably not many by my estimation, and they're smart. No one wants to be known especially if they're considered different by a groups standards. Humans have always been sheep; they're herd animals by nature; they hate the idea of what's not normal. It doesn't fit into their little plans. If it's not visually pleasing, you make it so by either ridding yourself of it, or having enough money put out to make it look better. If it could potentially be dangerous, you send out the dogs to sniff it out, flush it out of its hole and fill it so full of lead that you could sell its body parts for souvenir pencils. The mighty white hunter strikes again, pat the man on the back and give him a medal." Piccolo's eyes gleamed cruelly as he spoke, he watched the mans reaction, gauging, testing, seeing how far he could push the human before the man struck out either verbally or physically. He continued.  
  
"But then there are people like you, and your little General. They seek out those that don't quite fit the norm, and what do they do? They hunt them down, bind them, and find out what makes them tick. It doesn't matter that the thing they seek could potentially be more intelligent than them. Capable of thoughts and feelings, that would be too far of a stretch. May the Kai forbid that anything that doesn't fit the norm have the same things a human would. You scurry it off to some underground lab, stand around a one way mirrored room and write notes on what it does, what it eats, if it defecates and when. You jot it all down in the All Important Book of: What is Not Normal journal and move onto stage two. This is where it gets fun for you boys, and turns into a living nightmare for those that aren't normal in your eyes. Experiment after experiment; open them up see what makes them tick, but make sure to keep it alive so that you can study it further later. Then when you've rearranged any organs that it may or may not have, you sew it back up; next you work on how tolerant it is to elements. First you try to drown it, then fry it, maybe throw a bit of salt into both situations for flavoring. The whole time you never bother to ask it what its feeling, if it minds being flayed alive, then put back together. You humans do it with animals all the time, never considering the repercussions. The whole time you just thrust it into situation after situation and then you wonder why in the hell your planet gets it ass kicked nearly every decade by invading forces. Don't try and sugar coat what is plainly bullshit Trask. I know why I'm here, I know what you plan to do, and in all honesty, I say give it your best shot; because It's going to take more than five or six doctors, a General with an ego problem and you to take me down."  
  
Trask sucked air through his teeth in a slight whistle, crushing the cigarette beneath a booted foot, a tight grin on his face. "If that wasn't quite the speech; I'm not sure whether to clap, or give you a diploma in babbling 101. I'm not your enemy here chum, if anything I'm here to make this as comfortable as possible. I've been in the alien hunting business for probably a good thirty almost fourty years now, and you've been one of the few that's been left to roam free. You may ask why, you may not; but I'll tell you anyways. You've been an asset to the military and to this planet. You and your little super powered friends, they've helped this planet quite a few times, but then they've also nearly been the destruction of this planet. Now.. You tell me something. What happens when your friends and," Trask motioned to Piccolo; "you grow old and drop dead eh? What will happen when something comes along after you've all gone off to your great gods or whatever in the sky? Where does that leave us humans in fifty, one hundred or even three hundred years from now? We'll be without defenses, without a way to take care of ourselves. Now, if we had say four of five dozen of you, or your friends waiting to be created, lab grown and altered for our type of environment, just think of the possibilities. We wouldn't need humans to defend this world. Wars could be won in a matter of days instead of years; soldiers with families wouldn't have to be called off and killed for the sakes of their countries. If we had just a little bit of your genetic structure, your DNA, we could have an army of super human beings that didn't need to worry about families, their lives, or second guess orders."  
  
"What you want are drones that humans wouldn't feel so guilty about losing in a war. Something that can be killed without remorse; you want stronger, faster, smarter, yet complacent." Piccolo looked away disgusted. "You want something that the television wouldn't mind watching die, live and in color."  
  
"Wouldn't your people do the same if the opportunity arose?" Trask shot back.  
  
Piccolo laughed as he closed his eyes, he felt so tired and drained. "My people as they are were smart enough to learn from their own mistakes and corrected the problems before they got out of control. They don't rely on other races to bail them out whenever there's a problem, not unless it's something beyond their control and even then they do their damnedest to fix it before they ask anyone. Don't drag my people into this little debate. Remember this is your shit ball planet, not mine. I just happened to reside here, that's all. Now do me a favor and get the hell out. I'd like to get some sleep before you subject me to gods know what."  
  
"Indeed. I think it's best if we did let you rest, after all you seem rather agitated at the moment." Trask smirked, he wasn't sure who'd won this round at the moment, but he was willing to let the alien think it was his win. Trask slid his key card in the slot by the door and exited.  
  
Piccolo stared at the door for quite some time, there was too much to think about, and the drug they'd loaded him up with didn't allow for him to think clearly. Propping himself up against the wall, he eventually dozed off.  
  
The next day, or whatever passed for day in the windowless room brought Murashi into Piccolos holding cell. Piccolo had been up for sometime and had anticipated someone's arrival; not sure if it'd be Trask, Murashi, or the General.  
  
Piccolo's eyes followed Murashi as he waited for the door to slide close behind him then turned to face the namek. He tossed the creature the pair of pants he'd come in with; Piccolo caught them easily, unfolding from his lotus position to slide them on with a grateful nod to the human. Murashi averted his gaze politely as Piccolo dressed. After getting everything in order he looked to Murashi. "Why the sudden change of heart?"  
  
Murashi blinked rapidly, pulling off his rounded glasses and cleaning them in a nervous manner with a rage he pulled from his coat pocket. "It wasn't me, although I argued for your side. Trask asked the General to allow you some dignity, and I felt that it was in everyone's best interest to at least treat you somewhat properly." Murashi glanced to the Namek and cleared his throat. "If I approach you won't kill me will you?"  
  
Piccolo shrugged. "I don't see why I would; you're here in the same position I'm in. So what threat are they using on you? What's keeping you here?"  
  
Murashi glanced to door as he crossed the room towards Piccolo. "They have my daughter; they'll kill her if I don't do as they ask."  
  
"You mean they'll kill her if you don't do as they say, I don't think these guys would know how to ask." Piccolo folded his arms over his chest and regarded the man. To Piccolo, the man was doing his best to hide his fear, no just of Piccolo but of the General and of Trask. The doctor tried as much as he could to pretend that being kidnapped and held against his will was a daily occurrence. "I assume the rooms monitored not only by cameras but by audio surveillance as well?"  
  
Murashi nodded. "Of course, everything said is being recorded and documented. If you were to attack this room would be flooded with a debilitating gas, and you'd be rendered unconscious in a matter of seconds."  
  
"How nice," Piccolo commented dryly. "Spare no expense for the guests hmm? What would the gas to do someone like you?"  
  
"Chances are with the dosage it takes to put someone like you down for a bit, it would kill me. Your kind seems highly resistant to poisons and drugs." Murashi shrugged slightly. "But you seem too intelligent to have any want or need to attack, so I don't have to worry, now do I?"  
  
"I already said I have no intentions of attacking. You're in the same boat from what I can tell, and as to where I have nothing more than my life to lose, you have a family. I don't know you; I don't hold any animosity towards you. You're a simple human, just wanting to live their life and these guys are hindering you." In truth Piccolo had discovered that whatever this room was, it hindered him from using Ki, keeping him from even performing simple tricks as hovering or even flaring a bit of ki to light the room. He suspected it also had something to do with the black box on his ankle, but he wasn't about to truly test the limits of this facility and this room quite yet. He still had far too much to learn, and chances were if they were holding Murashi's family hostage in here, he could risk destroying them as well. Then something occurred to him, if they'd questioned Bulma. "Is there anyone else here they're holding against their will?"  
  
Murashi shook his head, but remained oddly silent. "Can I examine you? Just something routine, check your eyes, ears, mouth nose, heart, and lungs; it won't harm you in anyway."  
  
Piccolo shrugged, staying silent as well, letting the man do whatever he pretty much wanted, and twitching only slightly when the man got near his face, he hated things near his face, especially hands. He smirked faintly to himself when he recalled all the times Gohan as a kid had pawed at his face and it had taken nearly every ounce of self control to not throw the kid halfway across the clearing. He blinked coming back to the real world when he noticed Murashi was staring at him oddly.  
  
"Why are you grinning like that?" Murashi asked tensely.  
  
Piccolo chuckled and shook his head. "Just recalling something from a long time ago; sorry. I was just thinking of a kid I trained a long time back."  
  
"Would that be the one called Gohan?" Murashi moved from examining Piccolo's face to looking over the others arm and hand.  
  
Piccolo frowned. "You guys know far too much for my comfort."  
  
Murashi chuckled faintly. "Actually Gohan was a student of mine in College; first year. He took anatomy and physiology, he used you as his thesis in his final; seemed to think pretty highly of you and we had a discussion on you several times. He'd expressed his sorrows at not having the time or the means to come visit you more often, and had sworn me to secrecy that I wouldn't tell anyone that I knew of you. He was a pretty lonely guy in College, despite the fact he seemed to be a fairly popular young man, even for his age, you see he was going to College and High School at the same time. The young boy was a genius, which was amazing considering his disadvantage of being home schooled by his mother, and how much schooling he missed out on while training for various fights as a youth; oh yes I know Gohan very well."  
  
Piccolo wasn't sure how to respond to the doctors' comment, so he just stayed silent. Gohan had missed him? Gohan had actually confided in this man that he'd regretted not having spent more time with him after he'd gone off to school? That gave Piccolo a small amount of comfort, and he took back what he'd thought about Gohan, how he'd thought that Gohan had forgotten about him, and had gone onto bigger and better things. Murashi finished in silence and stepped back. "You seem healthy, in better shape than anything I've ever seen. Of course I can only base your vitals on a humans seeing as how I have very little to go on in the way of Namek physiology. I don't suppose you'd be willing to answer questions?"  
  
"That would fully depend on what kinds of questions, and what they would be used for." Piccolo's brow ridges creased as he frowned. "I understand you have a job to do Doctor Murashi, but that doesn't mean I may feel like cooperating. Especially since I know you're here because of Trask and that General. But, since you've been decent enough to me so far, and since you've treated me decently, I'll answer the questions I feel like answering."  
  
Murashi nodded agreeably. "Anything is better than nothing Piccolo-san. We're in a very precarious situation here and I fully understand and appreciate the situation. If you give me a moment I'll return with my notebook and a chair."  
  
Piccolo watched Murashi leave, letting the Namek have a few moments of peace and time to think. He figured Murashi was an even bigger pawn than he was, and that a lot of this mans researched hinged on the militaries success. Which meant once the man became useless chances were some fisher man would find his partially decomposed corpse after a long day of fishing.  
  
Why am I still here? Why am I not fighting back? Piccolo glanced around the room, it was a good question. He had no reason to stay here, other than to possibly learn just how much this affected non-human life forms, and maybe on some deep sadistic level he looked forward to destroying these people, and to see just how badly this had affected Kihann.  
  
Kihann, there's another enigma. No female Nameks for hundreds of years and suddenly she shows up out of the blue. Do they have her too? Or did she manage to get away. The other question is does anyone know I've gone missing? I hope Bulma's got brains enough to not let Kihann alone for long periods of time. I'm assuming by now that they've noticed I'm gone, and they've taken that as a bad sign.  
  
Murashi returned with another soldier who set up the chair and a small folding table for the Doctor, and giving a cursory glance to the Namek departed. Murashi smiled faintly to Piccolo as he set up a lap top computer and set down some folders. Piccolo made him self comfortable on the floor, waiting patiently.  
  
Murashi dove into the questioning with relish; he asked Piccolo a varying range of questions from such simple things as preferred sleeping habits all the way to just what his home world was like. Piccolo answered the ones he felt like, straying away from questions about his home world, particularly the questions that could potentially give away the location of his home world. He laughed when he asked if he had any children of his own, and plainly stated he'd never have kids of his own. He practically had raised Gohan, and for a while took care of Trunks and Goten. He had no desire to put himself through that hell again. Murashi smiled faintly and commented about how kids were a good thing, but moved on; next asking Piccolo just how he had ended up here, and why.  
  
Piccolo gave a shortened version of his life, leaving out such things as Kami, and the Guardianship, also leaving out the details of the dragon balls. In short he gave them information that wouldn't be useful to them, but made it sound as if it would be.  
  
Murashi wrote it all down, occasionally conferring with things from the folder. Piccolo idly glanced at a piece of paper that had fallen from the doctors grasp; noting that the information held a photo of Kihann, apparently from her initial capture. From the looks of it, they had roughed her over fairly well. He narrowed his eyes at the photo and glanced to Murashi. Murashi gave a faint smile and murmured; "The photo is old, from when Kihann first came to us. She put up quite a fight and well the men who had taken her in initially were less than tolerant towards aliens. But I assure you once she was in our hands; I tried my best to protect her from the men's anger."  
  
Piccolo snorted and tilted his head up to the ceiling, closing his eyes. "You have any other questions Doctor?"  
  
"Only one, ah Piccolo; would you care for anything to eat or drink? It has been a couple days since you've had any food or water. Surely you're hungry or at least thirsty. I'm assuming from the teeth and nails, you're a carnivore?"  
  
Piccolo chuckled and shook his head, keeping his eyes closed. "You assume too much; I'll be content with some water if that's fine with the rest of this bunch."  
  
He heard Murashi stand and stretch, closing his lap top and gathering his notes, heard him slide the key card into the door, the soft whisper of the door complying with the request. He sat in silence, feeling drained and weak; assuming that it was because of the ki dampener on his ankle.  
  
He was almost asleep when he heard the door whisk open once more and a pair of footsteps come in, assuming it was the doctor and a lackey returning with the asked for water.  
  
"Well, looks as if he's asleep. Shall we return later?" Trask's voice jerked the Namek back to wakefulness, though he kept his eyes closed. That was until he heard a soft familiar murmur.  
  
Opening his eyes he briefly wondered if what he saw was some sort of dream, or a bad joke. Trask stood at the closed door, and he wasn't alone.  
  
A familiar arm was slipped around Trask's muscled arm. An arm Piccolo had seen a dozen times. Kihann stood next to Trask leaning against that arm; gaze down on the floor, not looking at Piccolo, or at anyone else. Kihann standing next to Trask, as if it was nearly the most natural thing in the world as if she belonged there, and had always belonged there.  
  
Piccolo's heart stopped; it was a painful feeling and it made him feel sick inside. In that instance he knew he'd been more than used, he'd been betrayed, had his life put in jeopardy The expression must have been clear on his face, since Trask grinned cockily and patted Kihann's arm lovingly and said; "I think you two have quite a bit to talk about. Kihann darling, why don't you explain to the old fellow what you can? I'll be back in a bit to take you to see what you'd given up so much for."  
  
Trask slipped his arm out from under Kihann's and exited the room, two well armed soldiers coming in to stand on either side of Kihann. Piccolo's body tensed and he stood up in one fluid motion, noting that the guns the men carried came up to train themselves on the Namek's head.  
  
Piccolo stared at Kihann, feeling rage and hatred slowly boiling to the surface, shoving aside the hurt and feeling of betrayal, the sense of wanting to beat her to a pulp taking over any other emotion.  
  
Kihann and Piccolo stared at each other, silent for long, painful moments. Kihann's eyes were cool, and remote, as if she felt nothing about this situation; or if she did, she gave no indication what so ever that she felt one way or another. She watched as Piccolo flexed his arms and shoulders, a sure sign of agitation, his hands clenching into fists only to relax again and then double up into fists. She could tell that he so very badly wanted to destroy them all.  
  
Kihann sat down on the chair Murashi had previously occupied, crossing one leg over the other. She glanced to the guards as they came to take up positions on either side of her. "I hope you'll let me live long enough to explain Piccolo. I think you need to fully comprehend all this before anything worse happens, or that you learn things you'd rather not before I have a chance to tell you."  
  
Piccolo snarled, eyes narrowed into thin slits. "You have five minutes before I tear out your throat Kihann. I know I have just enough time before your soldiers take me out, and I'll take you with me for betraying not only me, but my friends."  
  
Kihann paled a bit, seeming to shrink a little in the chair. Licking her lips nervously she shakily poured a glass of water for herself, and a second glass for Piccolo, standing up she offered the glass to the other Namek. Piccolo reached out grasping her hand in his and crushed the glass in her hand. Kihann cried out as the glass bit cruelly into her hand, the shards digging into her soft palm, feeling bones snap in her fingers and hand. Piccolo bending over to hiss in her ear, ignoring the soldiers as they once again brought up their weapons. "You have five minutes Kihann, you traitorous little bitch. Start talking."  
  
Kihann waved off the soldiers with her free hand, cradling the broken and cut hand to her chest, purple blood staining the shirt she wore. She sat back down and taking a deep breath, began. 


	9. Bring me to life 9

Piccolo's heart hammered in his chest as he stood there his anger and rapidly rising hatred for her threatening to take over any senses, he watched Kihann try to nurse her broken and bleeding hand; the soldier offering a small medical kit to the female namek. She accepted the kit, opening it with her good hand and picking out a pair of tweezers started pulling shards of glass out of her hand.  
  
"You plan on explaining yourself today, or do I have to persuade you?" Piccolos deep voice hissed coldly, his hands flexing. Kihann flinched slightly.  
  
"It wasn't my intention to deceive you Piccolo; please you have to believe me. There's a circumstance surrounding this situation that you cannot possibly understand! Please you have to trust me on this." Kihann's breath came in short gasps, it was obvious she was in pain; Piccolo had done a fair job in crushing the fingers and the delicate bones in her hands and wrist. He ignored the small jab of guilt he felt for hurting her so badly, reminding himself that he was in this situation because of her and that she could easily heal herself in a matter of days.  
  
"So explain already god dammit, how long do you have to drag this out?" Piccolo surprised himself by responding in such a way; what he really wanted to do was hold her down and tear her apart piece by piece. The feeling of being used didn't sit well with the Namek and it was all he could do to contain the fury he felt. "You put my friends in a very shitty situation, and I don't like being used."  
  
Kihann bit her lip and murmured a dismissal to the guards; to which they frowned but obeyed; watching them exit both of the namek's faced off with each other once more. Kihann's eyes locked with Piccolo's, and for a long tense moment they stared into each others eyes, neither one willing to back down in the battle of wills. Finally it was Kihann who averted her gaze with a bitter sigh. "You have to understand Piccolo that I didn't want to use you. I wanted away from this place, I wanted to get away so badly, but there are things here, things that they're keeping from me and I had no other choice than to come back and do as they asked. I know I tricked you, you and your friends, but I had to Piccolo! You don't realize that you're a fair exchange for what I came back to them for!"  
  
Piccolo snarled, his temper snapping past the breaking point. He launched himself at her, and she screamed in terror and panic as he landed on top of her, knocking her out of the chair. They both tumbled head over heels arms locked against each other, only to break away and begin to pummel at one another. Those watching on the surveillance cameras were amazed by the two's speed and accuracy as they exchanged blows. Both snarling and swearing at one another in their native language. They were rather amazed at how well Kihann held her own, despite the other namek's size, weight and speed; as well as the fact that she was fighting with one broken hand and wrist, and he had both of his hands in play. It only ended when they saw Kihann's fists double up into Piccolos exposed belly during a roll, and fire off a ki blast into the soft area. Without his own ki to protect him the bigger namek doubled over and off of Kihann gasping for air, and unable to continue the fight. She had packed a powerful punch into one small ki shot.  
  
Kihann dragged herself to a corner, bruised badly but no worse for the wear. She had quietly noted (as had those watching) that Piccolo hadn't hit anything vital. No blows had come close to breaking bones or doing internal damage. Coughing and fighting to regain her breath, she gasped; "I could have had the soldiers come in and take care of you Piccolo. I could have had them come in and shoot you, but I didn't. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"  
  
Piccolo growled deep in his throat, leaning against the wall, wishing for the world that looks really could kill. "The only thing I understand now is that your loyal to only one thing; yourself. So what is it they promised you Kihann, A trip home, a place in their ranks? What was it they promised in exchange for me; did you promise them my friends as well? I know they're listening, waiting with baited breath to see what it is that I may reveal to you Kihann, but you screwed up. You screwed up more than you can possibly understand."  
  
Piccolo felt a sting across his face before he'd even realized Kihann was there at his side, her own clawed hand aimed for his throat. He wondered just exactly what kind of skills she had, how much she had hidden from him, and from Dende. He briefly wondered if she was possibly more powerful than him. But her words shoved away any wondering he may have had. "You understand nothing Piccolo. Not a blessed thing, like I told you, you egotistical idiot, that there is a situation that you cannot even begin to comprehend! You wouldn't understand it because you've never experienced it."  
  
Piccolo felt pressure on his ribs, grunting softly as she pressed her knee into his chest, snapping one rib, then a second, then finally a third. He couldn't draw in a proper breath to respond.  
  
"Kihann darling, leave him be now." Trask's voice drawled from the doorway, causing them both to jump, neither one having an idea he'd been standing there. Kihann stood up slowly relieving the pressure on Piccolo's chest and somewhat limped to Trask's side. Trask chuckled faintly and tweaked one of Kihann's ears as she walked by. "You play too rough Kihann. You didn't even give him a chance to get in a decent blow before you had him down."  
  
Kihann jerked her head away from the man snarling softly. "Keep your filthy human hands off of me Trask."  
  
Trask again chuckled as she departed, then turned to look at Piccolo over, lighting a cigarette. "I trained her myself when I was younger. Although she doesn't recall the sessions; chances are I doubt she recalls much of what happened between her and me. Cryo-stasis can do that to a person, make them forget things. But that's alright by me; I can always remind her later."  
  
Piccolo warily watched Trask, not liking the implications of Trask's words and he knew he was in no condition to fight, and he knew that Trask was aware of it as well. His chest hurt like blazes and the rake marks Kihann left across his cheek felt hot and prickly. He wasn't even going to consider the damage done to his pride on this round. "You come to gloat over Kihann's betrayal or just stand there looking like a moron? Because you know, I'm not really in the mood to socialize."  
  
"No of course not. I'm here to let you know that the real fun begins tomorrow. I suggest taking a long nap, because tomorrow is when you and Doctor Murashi become real close and personal." Trask shrugged and stepped into the hallway, the door hissing shut behind him.  
  
Piccolo picked himself up slowly, not giving any outward sign that he was injured; not allowing those watching to see any emotion on his features. Finding a clean corner of the room, free of any glass and blood, he took the humans advice; as he lay down, Piccolo considered the options he was presented with now. Kihann had betrayed him. But betray for what purpose? She had claimed that he couldn't possibly understand that he'd never experienced it; experience what? What was it that she had gone through that he hadn't? What was it that had brought her back to this place, and she had risked everything for? The past few weeks had been a good time for him, he'd thought he'd finally found someone he could not only relate to, but possibly open up and become close with. She'd talked a few times about knowing that things would never be the same for her, and he had hinted at the fact that he wouldn't have minded taking her on as a student and as a friend, she had grinned at him and had teasingly asked about being more than friends, to which he'd vehemently denied..but still.. Looking back now, he'd wondered if he'd even gone as far as to starting to develop feelings for her, and now after all this he wondered just how much she had been leading him on, not just on a personal level, but on any level. These questions and thoughts gnawed at him until pain and exhaustion forced him to succumb to sleep.  
  
Piccolo was awake long before anyone came to see him the next day. He sat against the wall farthest from the door and attempted to meditate, mull over what had happened yesterday. After about an hour he'd come to the conclusion that Kihann hadn't really betrayed him, that if she had wanted to, and had consciously wanted to, she could have trapped him in the Cyscal Gene Labs, the military could have been laying in wait the whole time.  
  
None of this makes sense. Everything seems too jagged to fit together. I do believe that the military had been watching me, and the other fighters, but I don't think Kihann had anything to do with it. And as for what she said about not understanding what she'd been through, she's right. I have no clue, but if she had told me, if they were keeping something from her that was important to her, all she'd have had to do was ask and I'd have gone and gotten it for her. But what could they possibly have that she couldn't have again?  
  
Piccolo would have pondered on it further if the door hadn't of drawn his attention away from his thoughts. He narrowed his eyes as Murashi entered followed by Trask, the General and finally Kihann; Piccolos eyes lingering on Kihann as the door closed. He silently noted that she kept herself as far away from Trask and the General as possible. Preferring to either stand off by herself, or closer to Murashi.  
  
Trask grimaced at the mess that had been left, and commented on how it should have been picked up. The General snapped back with "If the damn thing wants to act like an animal, let it live in its own filth like one."  
  
Murashi approached Piccolo murmuring a good morning before starting another exam, this time checking the wounds that had been received from the fight the night before. He allowed the doctor to approach, his eyes staying on Kihann, Piccolo murmured softly in their language; ~Ei outan bosoatar~ (I wanted to apologize.)  
  
Kihann shrugged a slender shoulder keeping her eyes on the floor. ~Ei lamante et~ (I deserved it.) ~eokc, ei lema etaozz yiroth aigreo neit orln. ~ (Besides, I wasn't very honest with you either.)  
  
The General glowered menacingly at the two as they talked. "We do have people to translate, so talking in your language isn't going to help."  
  
Piccolo snorted and smirked at the General but said nothing. Murashi finished up his examination, deemed Piccolo fine enough to get some general blood work and possibly to test his physical limits. Motioning him to stand, Murashi stepped off to one side as Trask moved in and placed cuffs on Piccolo's wrists. Piccolo gave the cuffs a look and shook his head, flexing his muscles he snapped the cuffs and waited as Trask and the General grew flustered over the incident. "I'm not going anywhere, I'm not going to fight anyone; there's no need for you to even bother with cuffs, chains, manacles, or whatever you have in mind for restraining me, I already agreed to stay on Kihann's behalf, and despite what happened yesterday, I will remain true to my agreement. You have me, what more do you guys need to do to prove to yourselves that I'm not going anywhere?"  
  
Kihann hid a grin behind her hand as she turned away; the General gave Piccolo an evil look before snapping to Trask that if the damn thing tried anything funny to shoot it in the head. Murashi gave a slight smile as he caught Kihann's look and exited.  
  
Trask nudged Piccolo with an elbow and motioned for the door. "C'mon, out with you, and try not to piss off the general, okay? I really don't want to have to deal with him in a pissed off mood all day."  
  
Piccolo shrugged. "If I have to suffer Trask, well then so do you."  
  
And suffer they made him. By the end of the day, Piccolo felt as if he'd been tortured in every possible way, Murashi subjected him to every test imaginable from simple blood work to even going as far as drawing spinal fluid. The spinal tap was the worst, being forced to lie still while they jammed a needle in his back. Murashi did his best to be careful, and had warned the Namek that yes some of the blood and fluid draw could or would be painful.  
  
Once he'd been escorted back to his room, he'd been informed that tomorrow he'd have to go through exploratory surgery. He passed out, barely hearing them as they explained what would happen.  
  
That experience left Piccolo in agony, he recalled Murashi apologizing, asking for forgiveness for hurting him. Murashi tried hard to keep Piccolo under, but every anesthetic wore off after an hour or so, the pain killers were nothing more than water dripping through the namek's veins. The surgery lasted for four hours, but to Piccolo it lasted an eternity. Piccolo dimly recalled the gleaming smirk on the Generals face as he watched from the observation booth above.  
  
Day after day he was tested, operated on, even had various diseases injected to see what they would do. After a while, the days blurred into one long endless test; one thing blurring into another until he didn't know what they were doing, why and after a while he stopped recalling who they were.  
  
The days passed into weeks, weeks passed into a month, then two. Piccolo soon forgot all about the outside world; his world was here, with Trask, the General, Doctor Murashi and Kihann. His world consisted of a tiny room, sometimes a different room depending on what they were doing, he couldn't recall the outside, couldn't remember the clearing he'd called home for so long, Gohan, and the others seemed like a rapidly fading dream.  
  
He lived in a world of drug induced sleep, pain and sensory deprivation. Piccolo lived in a black blanket, where only dim light came through, muffled sound, and pain. He'd stopped questioning them, stopped questioning himself; and worst of all, he'd stopped caring.  
  
Almost stopped caring; Kihann had become the center of the universe, the small sun that kept the rest of the universe together. The planets that were named Pain, Confusion, and Hatred circled around her, never touching her never being a part of her, but in this universe she was the center and everything else floated around in a dizzying pattern. She'd done her best to reconcile with Piccolo and he'd done his best to give her the benefit of the doubt. Particularly after one grueling day, as Piccolo laid half conscious in his room, listening to a conversation between Trask and Kihann. He assumed that they thought him unconscious, or they'd have not talked the way they have, or so he'd thought.  
  
"You guys are killing him. That wasn't part of the deal Trask." Kihann's voice was a harsh whisper to Piccolo's ears; she sat with Piccolo's head in her lap, washing his forehead with a damp cloth. It felt good, and the coolness helped calm his nerves, they'd subjected him to a battery of tests, injecting him with some disease, a name he couldn't recall, all he knew was that it made his joints ache, and left him feeling far to weak to move. He knew he'd recover, diseases didn't affect Nameks in general; not the diseases humans often carried with them.  
  
"He agreed to it for your sake, love. What did you expect?" Trask responded not as softly as Kihann had. "The stupid thing seems quite taken up with you, considering most wouldn't allow themselves to be guinea pigs for the military in place of someone else."  
  
"Don't call me that!" She hissed at him.  
  
"Call you what, love?" Trask's tone became slightly mocking. Piccolo heard the soft rustle of cloth as Trask approached Kihann. "You never seemed to mind it before, that is until you met him."  
  
"I minded it before. I minded it a lot and told you not to call me that. I'm not your partner, mate, whatever. I've only done what I've had to tolerate to keep those I care about safe." Kihann's tone was acidic. Piccolo wondered just what she'd had to do to keep him safe, and who else she had to think about.  
  
Trask must have responded with a gesture, since Piccolo didn't hear any response. The only sound he heard was the door hissing open and shut; he took that as a sign that Trask had left.  
  
Sighing softly Kihann sat with the damp towel in her hands wringing it worriedly. It was true; she'd enjoyed Trask's attentions before. Maybe not some of the attention he insisted on giving, but even then that was forgettable. She'd enjoyed the things he'd brought for her from the outside world before, the little trinkets and baubles from this world that had seemed so foreign to her, yet commonplace to Trask. Kihann had thought she'd found a friend and someone she could confide in when she'd met Trask. After all he was so very much like her, or so he'd claimed. He'd told her that he believed that he wasn't quite human, but had never found out; and for all she knew, he could be alien like her. They'd grown quite close during the first few years she'd been in the facility. She hadn't been completely truthful when she'd sent the dream images to Piccolo. She'd shortened the time, made it seem like she'd not been in the facility long, but in truth she'd been there for over twenty five to thirty years. Had been a part of the military's program the entire time, Trask training her, teaching her to hunt, and to gather information, among other things. Staring down at Piccolo she wondered how long it would be before he discovered the truth. How long it would be before he found out what they'd done to him as well.  
  
Piccolo's hand reached up slowly cupping her face in his warm hand. She blinked slightly startled, not having realized that he was awake. "You look worried."  
  
Kihann exhaled slowly, dipping the towel in the water, resuming her ministrations.  
  
"There is much to be worried about Piccolo."  
  
"Things. are not going the way you'd been told, are they."  
  
"No, they're not. But you shouldn't worry about that now."  
  
"I have to. This involves more than just you and I, doesn't it." Piccolo's fevered eyes focused on Kihann's sapphire blue eyes. "There's something you're not telling me, and you're scared to tell me."  
  
Kihann laughed faintly, eyes darting to the door. "There's a lot that I haven't told you Piccolo; a lot I want to tell you, but lack the words to say them properly. There's a lot I can't tell you right now. It's not the time or the place; I'd tell you if I could Piccolo, there's so much I want to tell you, share with you; but it could end up hurting you in the end."  
  
It was Piccolo's turn to laugh softly. "They're killing me now. What more could they do to me Kihann?"  
  
Kihann's eyes half closed and she murmured, "They could prolong the process, they could start hurting San-Yi, or they could hurt others, don't forget they're holding San-Yi's family here as well, his daughter."  
  
Piccolo pushed away Kihann's hand from his forehead as he sat up, fighting the wave of dizziness that ensued. "Then when? When will you tell me the truth? Or I should say all of the truth. Can you at least give me what you can?"  
  
Kihann closed her eyes, sighing softly as her shoulders slumped; she tugged on Piccolos arm coaxing him to lie back down, and his head in her lap once more. "I guess I owe you that much, lie down and I'll tell you what I can."  
  
Piccolo complied, lying back down and getting comfortable; he allowed his eyes to close, he knew Kihann could sense if he was awake or asleep. He smiled faintly as she began her voice soothing his frayed nerves. "You knew the lab you found me in had been around for almost eighty years. That San- Yi had founded the lab with private funding until he'd started to get into stem cell research and into the use of aborted human fetuses for looking at cures to diseases. What wasn't known was that he also had looked into cloning; after all it was taboo to use aborted fetuses for scientific research; people protested his lab, protested his home and he'd had more than one attempt on his life by zealot right to life protestors. His wife left him after the fourth attempt on his life, of course she supported him, supported his work What could be a more noble cause than finding cures to diseases? But she couldn't hand the constant harassment, the constant phone calls and death threats. Even their children had to be privately schooled because no public learning facility would accept them; they were told that they caused a high risk in security for the rest of their students and for the faculty.  
  
As I was saying, his wife took their youngest daughter and left the country; leaving their oldest daughter with San-Yi. San-Yi's daughter Rain, decided to stay with her father, knowing that he'd need someone to take care of him. Rain at the age of ten developed some disease, I'm not sure what kind, Murashi told me once but I never could recall it properly. It starts with an M and has an odd name. It strikes the nervous system rendering them immobile and often times to wallow in pain as the disease strikes at their muscles, nerves and organs. It robs them of their speech, motor functions; it generally makes their lives a living hell. I saw her once or twice; she's such a pretty little thing, so tiny, with the blackest hair you can imagine." Kihann's voice took on a soft tone; one Piccolo had heard Chichi use when she used to talk about Gohan as a child to other people.  
  
"Anyways, when San-Yi's private funding providers abandoned him just short of ten years into his research, he was lost." Kihann caught the inhalation of breath, knowing what question Piccolo was about to ask; "Yes, before you ask, this is well before I came along. The vision I did send you is truthful when it implied that I had been caught well after San-Yi had joined with the military, accepting their funding. San-Yi wasn't happy that the General in charge had deemed his facility a holding place for aliens. But he had no choice, Lieutenant Yasan, the man who was over seeing all this had said that if Murashi didn't comply that he'd make sure San-Yi's family suffered."  
  
Kihann fell silent for a moment, trying to sort out what she could and couldn't tell Piccolo. It was all so complicated, and even then some of the things she'd been told she knew were lies. "What I'm telling you Piccolo, may or may not be the truth, what I have been told, what I've learned for myself, and I'm sure as you've figured out by now, that this entire place was built up on lie after lie, occasionally truth being tossed in for foundation. But I can tell you this; the cloning I mentioned earlier? San- Yi had been successful in the cloning process. The outside world doesn't know much about it, the military has kept it a secret for the past fifty years. The San-Yi Murashi you know, the one who's been with us the whole time, isn't the real San-Yi Murashi. He's one of the first successful clones that survived the process, the first San-Yi died about five years after my capture."  
  
Piccolo slowly opened his eyes and stared up at Kihann. "One of the first successful.." He trailed off, waiting and dreading to find out what Kihann may say next.  
  
"I was the third." Kihann murmured softly. "My original body was damaged badly by the alien in the vision. That creature tore me apart beyond any way that I could heal myself or the doctors could repair. They took samples of my core make-up and had me rebuilt. If you go back into the vision, if you recall it you'll notice that it makes hardly any sense; that is if you search deep down, and try to piece things together. Does this all make sense now, in some way? These guys," She motioned to the room, indicating those that were watching, listening; "Are trying to fine tune the cloning process, trying to weed out any genetic defects. We Nameks, you and I are nearly perfect for their research; we heal quickly, adapt to our surroundings in ways that it could take humans a generation or two to adapt to. Our ability to not require food, only water, and our speed, endurance and general stamina is what makes us sought after. Our defiance to disease is what attracted not only the military but Murashi to use us. I've been with Murashi for almost thirty years; being a willing subject, wanting to help him save his daughter. She should be grown and with children of her own by now, but Murashi used the Cryo-capsules to put her to sleep when she was thirteen, knowing that he didn't have much time left to find a cure for her. Like me you have the core make up of the original Nameks, you have the ability to regain a gender, and the power that our new relatives lack. I know your history Piccolo, considering that was your Kami's name before you two split and then rejoined."  
  
Piccolo blinked slowly, surprised by her words. "I'll be damned."  
  
Kihann smiled faintly, bending over to kiss Piccolo's forehead. "It's not that big of a secret, I knew that when I had left, someone else had prepared a second space ship to send another namek off into space. Odd that it happened to be the same planet? Maybe, maybe not; only the fates know."  
  
"Piccolo hmm'd softly, closing his eyes again. "This sounds like one of those stories you'd hear about in book. I have a question though, where does Trask fit into this?"  
  
Kihann chewed her lip a bit, she knew that Trask would be listening; he always followed her, and always listened in on everything she said. "Trask." She trailed off uncertainly. "Trask is the second successful clone created. Trask is the son of that thing that you saw in my vision."  
  
Piccolo jerked upright and spun to face her. "He's what?!"  
  
Kihann met Piccolos outburst head on. "He's the son of that thing, that thing that they tried to get me to couple with."  
  
"You mean that Trask is your son?" Piccolo's look of confusion almost made Kihann laugh, and she shook her head.  
  
"No, no Trask isn't my son. That thing that they tried to get me to be with was female as well. Except they didn't know it, what it was trying to do to me was place a symbiotic thing inside me, to take control That's what that alien was trying to do; find another host. It knew that the body it currently resided in was dying, it too had been wounded in its initial capture, and all it wanted was to survive. The scientists didn't realize this, and had thought it was trying to mate. But in order for the symbiotic creature to move onto another host it had to simulate the act of mating, it was all confusing, not only to me, but to the scientists as well. That part of the vision is true; and the symbiotic couldn't carry over to me, my body would reject it every time, so it had no choice but to stay within its current body."  
  
Piccolo frowned recalling the corpse he'd seen in the first lab he'd come to when he'd searched for Kihann. "There was something in a cryo-capsule that I came across before I found you. Its chest cavity had been burst open; was that it?"  
  
Kihann nodded; "Probably, yes. Trask looks human because that's what the symbiotic wanted it to look like. But in all actuality Trask is as alien as you and I, except that he accepts the alien creature living within him, using its power and strength to its full advantage; and that also would explain why he's their lead person for searching out aliens."  
  
Piccolo considered a few things before speaking up again. "So why don't they use Trask for cloning and research?"  
  
Kihann sighed and shook her head. "Trask doesn't have the abilities we possess. He's just a cloned body, with a creature living inside him. Trask is the genetic combination of the best attributes humans have to offer, he being one of the first successful genes splicing and recombining and cloning. He's the first among his kind;" Kihann shrugged her shoulders and shivered. She'd spent many hours with Trask, and she knew just how ugly he could get, just how powerful he was. Unconsciously she moved closer to Piccolo and only relaxed when he slipped an arm around her, leaning back against the wall, allowing her to rest her head against his chest. "Trask considers me his, if all truth be told. His mate and his partner and if you're wondering yes we have slept together, and he's severely jealous of you."  
  
Piccolo snorted, chuckling. "What's he jealous for? He's free, I'm not. You're helping them of your own will just as he is. It's not like I'm going to call him out and challenge him for rights over you." He fell silent for a moment, his hand idly rubbing her arm. "Not that I wouldn't if I had the opportunity."  
  
Kihann raised a brow ridge, Piccolo's words confusing her. "Meaning, you'd call him out for the sheer challenge, or if it came down to it you'd fight for rights over me?"  
  
"Kihann you're your own person. Meaning you can make your own decisions, and pick whoever you want to like. If you like Trask, who am I to complain? It's your life; but yes I guess if you want I'll admit that I'd happily take Trask on in a fight if it meant your freedom."  
  
Kihann sighed softly, not sure if that was the answer she'd been looking for or not. "I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the idea that you'd fight for me if it came down to it."  
  
Piccolo grinned to himself and squeezed Kihann in a one armed hug. "You want me to admit something else, don't you?"  
  
Kihann smirked to no one. "Maybe that is if it's the truth, and not something you expect me to hear."  
  
"What if I don't want to admit it?" Piccolo was enjoying this particular little game, knowing that those listening would be getting frustrated and annoyed, as well as Kihann getting agitated.  
  
"Just admit it!" Kihann poked the others' ribs, grinning evilly.  
  
Piccolo looked around as if he was unsure of where he was at and had lost track of the conversation. "Admit what?"  
  
"Piccolo, stop being so mean!" Kihann whined as she shoved the bigger namek back, and then straddled him to sit on his chest. "Now say it."  
  
"Hey what happened to tending to me? You know, what we were doing before?" Piccolo grinned maliciously, letting Kihann get comfortable on his chest, and he rested his head on his arms, folding his arms behind his head. "And say what? That you're a pain in the ass?"  
  
She nodded, starting to agree then growled; "NO! I'm not a pain in the ass!" Placing a hand on each of Piccolo's arms she pressed down, effectively trapping the bigger namek beneath her. He feigned a helpless look before he ended up breaking into helpless laughter. "Now say it."  
  
"Okay, you're a pain in the ass."  
  
She dug her knees into his ribs, eliciting a yelp from him. "C'mon say it."  
  
"If I do it'll make Trask mad." Piccolo pointed out.  
  
"I'll deal with Trask. Now I want you to say what you've wanted to say." Kihann countered.  
  
Piccolo just helplessly shook his head, giving up. ~Ei ylantai neit~ (a/n *Smirk* I'll let you guys figure out what he said.)  
  
Kihann grinned brightly repeating his words as she released Piccolo's arms and leaned forward kissing his lips privately pleased that he responded back before rolling off of him. "That's all I needed to hear. Mind if I stay here with you tonight?"  
  
Piccolo remained laying on the floor as Kihann sat next to him. "Let me guess, to keep an eye on me for the night?"  
  
"Something like that yes." Kihann shrugged and grinned as she curled up next to Piccolos side, resting her head on his arm, getting comfortable. "My room gets cold."  
  
"Cold doesn't bother us."  
  
"Shut up and go to sleep. You're still too ill to argue."  
  
In the control booth General Mauston grinned as he watched the two; his grin wasn't a pleasant one and those that were there to witness it knew that the smile on his lips was one that was usually reserved for special occasions. Meaning that someone was about to die. "Trask you old bastard, I know you're watching. Sic 'em."  
  
Trask meanwhile fumed silently as he watched from his own video surveillance in his quarters; watched as Piccolo curled his body around Kihann's, much in the way he had with Kihann hundreds of times. He had known Kihann was falling for the other Namek, had known that the bitch was getting away from him, it was inevitable. That was fine with him, he had what he needed now, he'd taken from her all he could, and it was about time to move on. Exiting his rooms he walked down the hallway to a door that two armed guards remained at watch. Waving them aside, he punched the key-code only he and two other people knew of. Entering, Trask immediately crossed over to the small bed that held his attention.  
  
Glancing down at the contents of the bed, he grinned cruelly as the image of Piccolo and Kihann lying side by side surfaced in his head. "Oh, yes this will be fun indeed. Piccolo old fellow you're about to have your wish come true. In fact, I think I will call you out very, very soon." Picking up the items on the bed, he stepped through the door and proceeded down the hallway. "In fact here I come." 


	10. Bring me to life 10

Kihann snuggled up to the warm chest, content and happy, slowly waking up. She couldn't remember being this happy; not in a very long time. She sighed softly, listening to Piccolo's breathing and heart beating. She shivered contentedly when she recalled last night, recalling that Piccolo had finally admitted after teasing her mercilessly that he did love her and that he cared for her.  
  
She recalled the dream they'd shared last night. It had been her idea, and she'd surprised Piccolo when she'd shown up in his dreams. It was the same trick she'd used to call to him.  
  
She'd set up the dream as she'd wanted it before calling out for Piccolo. Summoning up memories from her childhood, she set the scene as one of her favorite spots on old Namek. It was one of those hidden spots, a trysting place for younger ones, when she was a girl. Now she would use it to show Piccolo something that she'd struggled with for the past month. It had been something that had been keeping her here, keeping her from escaping and had kept her under Trask's thumb.  
  
Once Kihann was content that everything was the way she wanted it, she set out to find Piccolo's thought pattern; quickly finding it and latching on, luring his mind to hers, linking on a level that no one but herself or Piccolo could break. Piccolo materialized looking mildly confused until he realized that Kihann was in charge of this scenario and to which the look of confusion turned to a smirk.  
  
"Is this your idea of us being alone?" His baritone voice rumbled in mild amusement, arms folded over his chest, eyes shifting taking note of the surroundings. "I take it that this is home as you remember?"  
  
Kihann laughed faintly watching as the breeze stirred Piccolo's shirt. "Yes this is my idea of being alone, since both of us know that Trask and Mauston are watching our every move, listening to everything we say. And there's something I wanted to tell you, and show you."  
  
Piccolo raised a brow ridge, half smirking, feeling flippant. "What you didn't want them to watch?"  
  
Kihann elbowed Piccolos side. "Not that you idiot! Besides, you're not capable of doing anything yet."  
  
Piccolo coughed and rubbed his side, murmuring, "I don't want to know how you know that."  
  
Kihann smirked as she walked next to Piccolo leading him to a grove of trees. "I've been with you through a couple procedures."  
  
Piccolo flushed profusely, and changed the subject. "Did you drag me here to embarrass me, or were you going to tell me something?"  
  
"Okay, okay; you have to promise me that you won't be angry. That what I'm about to tell you is neither one of our faults. You have to promise me that what if something happens that you won't blame anyone." Her tone had grown serious and she gazed into Piccolos eyes, coming to a stop and facing him, her fingers weaving into his. "I only know about it because Trask is using it against me, in an attempt to keep me at his side."  
  
Piccolo watched her facial expressions carefully, taking note in every eye shift, every twitch of her lips, he could sense that she was not only nervous, but almost terrified of his response. "Kihann, just tell me. Whatever it is I won't blame you. We've come too far to let whatever they've done come between us. You've shown me a side of myself that I've denied far too long, and I would deny this if anyone asked me, but you were one of the first people that has shown me that I can become something more than what I was meant to, I had thought Gohan had been the one, but he'd just been the start."  
  
Piccolo half expected her to say that she was with Trask's child, but he knew that humans and Nameks were just too incompatible for breeding to be successful, he knew that the blood types would be more than incompatible if something were to come of a mating like that the child would most likely be deformed, not to mention possibly genetically damaged. But if that wasn't the case then what else could it be? And what he had just admitted had been his true feelings. He just hoped that they wouldn't come back later to haunt him.  
  
Kihann leaned forward resting her head against his chest but only after kissing his chin. "What you said means more to me, and gives me the courage to tell you what I have to. Trask and Mauston wanted me to keep it secret, threatened not only my death but yours if you were to find out, but I have to tell you Piccolo, you're love for me means too much; and what I have planned could mean your freedom, and I need you to know something before I do anything."  
  
Piccolo lifted her chin with a finger, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "You're stalling; just tell me."  
  
Kihann sighed. "You've been here three months; we've been here three months total actually, and during that time they've subjected you to just about everything possible. You know this you're the one who's gone through it. While they've tested on you, they've been testing on me as well. I've allowed San-Yi to take what's needed; especially after he told me what he had to do. Remember when I told you that his daughter was ill? San-Yi has been using our blood, our abilities in an attempt to heal his daughter, to cure of her that disease I had told you about. I allowed it because I knew that he loved her, and that all he wants is to have his daughter back. I also allowed it because of my feelings for you since I first got to know you." She traced a finger down his arm, swallowing slightly as she felt him tense a bit. "They've taken your core make-up and mine, and combined them Piccolo. They've created-"  
  
"They've created test tube offspring." Piccolo finished for her, realization dawning on him slowly. His heart suddenly wanted to reside somewhere in his throat, and a tingling sensation coursed through his limbs like volts of electricity. It took a few moments to gather his thoughts, and even longer before he could look at Kihann fully in the face. They had offspring, a child. Their blood had created something that hadn't existed on Namek in hundreds of years. They had created a child between a man and a woman, or as close to a man and a woman that they'd get for a while.  
  
"Two children Piccolo," Kihann responded softly, nodding. "One is a boy, one a girl; they were created just a month ago and released from the tubes just a short while back, their growth accelerated so that they can survive outside the tubes. I've gotten to see them Piccolo and they're," Kihann stopped, not sure what to say; how he'd react to her words. "They're beautiful Piccolo and, and."  
  
"Just, shh for a moment Kihann, you're rambling, and you're kind of scaring me to be honest." Piccolo wrapped his arms around her, knowing she needed the contact, sensing that she was scared and unsure on how to tell him everything; privately he was scared, and all this was stuff he'd never thought he'd live to hear. "Why don't you tell me what Trask and Mauston plan on doing with these kids?"  
  
"They plan on training them, using them as a team to seek out other alien life forms, not just on this planet but on others as well as soon as the military is capable of deep space travel. They're a bonded pair Piccolo, meaning they're linked, their combined power when they grow up could potentially destroy this entire sun system. Separate their power levels would be normal but together, well like Trask told you, they're looking for powerful species to clone and train for an army. That's what they plan on doing with the kids." Kihann closed her eyes fighting tears.  
  
"So, we find a way to escape, all of us and we get the hell out of this place." Piccolo stated simply. If anything to him it sounded insane, get him, Kihann and their children out of a military facility alive. It sounded like something you'd see on a Friday night television special, or in a book.  
  
"They're kept in a locked room, heavily guarded, not only by soldiers but by automatic weapons. The sensors are only locked onto three people's heat signatures and voice patterns. Trask's, Doctor Murashi's and General Mauston's, they're the only ones allowed in. I only got to see them once and even then they'd been brought out to me." Kihann smiled faintly as she looked up at Piccolo. "Kind of a crappy way to say congratulations you're a father, but it was the only way I could figure out how, and using a mind link was the only way I could be sure that you'd understand, and they wouldn't know."  
  
Piccolo sighed softly, again realizing that he would have to find a way to not only get out alive but to get others out in the process. "Right now we have to just cooperate as best as possible, now that I know what's at stake."  
  
Kihann shook her head, tugging on his shirt. "No, they can't know that you're aware of the little ones. It could jeopardize them, Trask wouldn't have any qualms with killing them and starting over just to hurt us, and he'd kill them in front of us just to try and make a point. I have a plan, and I need you to play ignorant. Can you do that?"  
  
Piccolo glanced away, focusing on the area around him. "I trust you Kihann; but promise me one thing?" He focused back on her, he didn't realize until then just how much he'd come to care for her. "Promise me that when this is all over that you'll still be here?"  
  
"I can't make you that promise Piccolo. I can't make you any promises, all I can do is try as best as I can, and that I hope you have enough faith in me to pull what I have planned off. I've managed to get some outside help, but even then I'm not sure just how much got through." Kihann sighed softly looking suddenly weary and drained. "I have to break contact now, it's all I can do to keep up this link; please promise me that you won't say a word?"  
  
Piccolo nodded, letting the image break up, and falling into dreamless slumber. Kihann waited until the link was broken before she allowed herself to fall into sleep.  
  
Kihann rolled over, watching Piccolo sleep. She was pleased that Piccolo had handled the news as well as he had. She wasn't sure at first at how he'd react, at first afraid that he'd be angry, possibly blame her for allowing all this to happen. But he'd seemed happy, and with the empathic impressions she'd gotten he'd been scared yes, but felt hopeful, and on a private level Piccolo was almost eager to see what they had created. All Kihann wanted to do now was get away, but it wasn't going to be as easy as said. She knew Trask and Mauston would stop at nothing to keep them there; and she knew Trask would kill Piccolo if given a chance just to keep Kihann at his side.  
  
"You look worried."  
  
Kihann blinked, jumping at the sound of Piccolos voice. "A little, but it's nothing for you to become worried over."  
  
Piccolo watched Kihann as she got up and stretched, the floor was far from comfortable; but he'd become accustomed to it. He thought about all that he'd been told last night, having been told that they'd used his genetic make-up to create not only one child but two. He grinned to himself when he imagined the looks on his friend's faces when and if he escaped with this entire lot and showed back up to the Lookout. The grin faded when he looked around the room and realized that the when, was rapidly turning into an 'if'.  
  
All this was happening far too fast. He'd been here three months, put through hell volunteering to take Kihann's place, he'd not thought about these past three months, hadn't thought about his feelings for Kihann, hadn't thought about himself; and all of a sudden, he needed to think about all of this. His entire life he'd spent focusing on the next battle, the next big fight. He'd spent his time training, learning to focus on the future, but the future had never included a family. It'd been one of those things he'd never wanted to think about. Piccolo having a family; he'd have laughed at the entire idea five or six months ago. But then again, five or six months ago he'd have laughed outright if someone had told him that Kihann had existed. And now here he was, having fallen in love with someone that wasn't supposed to exist in his world and now he had kids. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was laughing at the whole thing. Not in a cruel or malicious way, but in the way that all this seemed like some convoluted, twisted dream that he half expected to wake up from and see Gohan or Goku sitting there in his little camp grinning like an idiot asking and ask what he'd been dreaming.  
  
But when he sat up, fully waking up and thought about the situation they were in Goku's silly grin seemed like a distant memory. So did just about everything else, he once again caught himself thinking of the future, thinking of another battle, but this time this battle was one that was personal; he knew he was on his own and that he couldn't get any help.  
  
His thoughts were interrupted when Murashi came in, looking panicked and disheveled, so panicked that he tripped over his own feet, and it took Kihann's agility to catch the human before he fell on his face.  
  
Kihann helped Murashi sit on the floor, and screamed as she pulled back her hand away from his neck, her hand covered in blood. "He's hurt!"  
  
Murashi's eyes rolled in his head, lips moving but he made no sound, Kihann pressed her ear to his lips trying to grasp what it was he was trying to say. Murashi's body shuddered as he managed to get out what he was trying to say; Kihann nodded and then her eyes widened as she grasped what he had said. "Trask is coming with the kids."  
  
Piccolo didn't need to be told. He was staring at Trask, who stood in front of a solider that held two small Namekkian children in his arms, both children appeared to be around three or four years of age, terrified as they clutched onto Trask and Piccolo wondered just what the hell they'd used on the kids to accelerate their growth that quickly. Trask grinned like a mad man, pink tongue darting out to lick his lips before he spoke. "Seems we got ourselves a stalemate here old fellow."  
  
Piccolo had a moment of panic, realizing he couldn't attack Trask, not while he held the kids, and not while he had no way to attack; the ki dampening ankle device still firmly attached to his leg. And apparently, Trask knew it too. "Now, Dr. Murashi here went back on his deal, and you see he had to pay for it, and now Kihann my darling girl here went back on her deal as well. And she's going to have to pay for her little traitorous act now as well."  
  
"That depends on what you consider traitorous Trask. Looks to me that you're the one playing traitor; where will you go, you can't hide Trask." Piccolo glanced to Kihann, she was doing her best to tend to Murashi, but even Piccolo saw that it was a losing battle that Murashi had lost too much blood to survive the man breathing his last breath as Piccolo watched; quickly he flicked his eyes back to Trask. "Killing any of us, all of us will only make this entire ordeal a failure."  
  
Trask threw his head back and laughed, he appeared to carry no weapons, but that didn't mean much to Piccolo; he'd seen too many fighters that could wield energy like he and his friends. "Do you really think so? Just from your genetic structure alone we could start making thousands, millions, of soldiers now! This planet wouldn't have need for you or your friends anymore. We could lock them up like the freaks you are!"  
  
Piccolo smirked folding his arms over his chest. "I'd love to see you try Trask. Considering you're just like the rest of us."  
  
"Ah so Kihann here told you about the organism that helps give me my gifts, my power?" Trask nudged her with a toe, and watched as she scrambled away from his touch, and to Piccolo's side. "I'd wondered how long it would be before you and she got together. After all people have a tendency to try and stick with their own kind. But she was good while she lasted."  
  
"The way I see it Trask, she used you as much as you used her. I don't know why you're gloating anyways." Piccolo felt Kihann's hand slip around his ankle, fiddling with the inhibitor and broadened his grin. "It wasn't like I was going to compete with something like you; after all you're beneath me. You're a parasite; a bug living within a pile of garbage."  
  
"But this pile of garbage as you so quaintly describe me can destroy your little world of happiness." Trask pointed a finger at the children, his hand glowing faintly; giving Piccolo the indication that he did indeed have the power to destroy. "I can kill your little kids; after all we can just whip up another batch. Then I can destroy Kihann here, after I've had my fun with her of course, letting you watch, and then finally destroy you."  
  
"Where's General Mauston?" Piccolo's sudden question and diversion from Trask's rant threw off the other man completely. He wanted to keep Trask talking, off balance for as long as possible. He had felt the ankle inhibitor slip off his leg and into Kihann's grasp as Trask went on about killing everyone, and now he needed to buy time to gather his strength, power and to build a strategy.  
  
"Mauston?" Trask looked confused momentarily as if he expected the General to be standing behind him, even going as far at turning his head to look behind him, and then grinned as he looked back to Piccolo. "Oh Mauston; he had a bit of a run in with me this mornin' seemed he was about to take your little darlings here and keep them for himself. He'd even poisoned my food. Sneaky bastard; but I showed him what its like to cross me."  
  
Piccolo ticked Mauston off of his who to kill list, seemed that Trask had done it for him, for which he was grateful. "What about the rest of the soldiers here Trask, you think they're going to let you walk out of here with their pet projects?" Piccolo casually motioned to the soldier behind Trask. Kihann stood up slowly, clutching her fists tightly; Piccolo could feel her power levels rising inch by inch and knew it was a matter of time before she attacked.  
  
"Bloody hell you ask a lot of questions." Trask snarled irritably. He didn't like questions, and this damn thing was doing its best to stall, he realized that now. Trask knew his time was getting short, and that he needed to get out of there and fast. "They'll let me walk out with whatever the hell I want."  
  
Piccolo glanced at Kihann; they both knew that they had to act and at that moment other wise they'd lose everything, including their own lives. Kihann crossed over in front of Piccolo, snarling a battle challenge to Trask, her hand flicking out to snap and release the inhibitor at the soldiers face, the little box connecting with the mans head and detonating, the soldier crying out in pain as the box detonated releasing some of Piccolo's stored energy; letting go of the kids as he tried to pick shrapnel from his eyes and face screaming the whole while.  
  
Piccolo crossed behind Kihann diving for the two kids, glad when he felt two bodies connect with his arms. Rolling to a stand he watched as Kihann tackled Trask, slamming him up against the outer wall, and then spinning she used the wall as balance, hands grasping Trask's shoulders, scrunching her knees up between her chest and Trask's, she kicked out brutally knocking Trask back into Piccolo's holding cell, then blasting the control panel the door slid shut, closing Trask in. "Run you moron!" Kihann snarled as she grabbed Piccolo's arm and jerked him down the hall, palm shooting the screaming soldier in the face, putting the man out of his misery. "Unless you were waiting for some sign from the gods, run! You know that door isn't going to stop him long!"  
  
Piccolo grasped each kid in an arm and ran; he noted that both of them were oddly silent. He followed Kihann since she was the only one who knew how to get out; where to go. Piccolo noticed that the hallways were oddly devoid of soldiers and personnel and he wondered just where the hell everyone was at, the klaxon alarm howled loudly, grating on everyone's nerves. The only thing they did run into were three dead soldiers, their eyes gouged out, one mans head turned completely in the opposite direction it was supposed to go; and finally General Mauston; half of him anyways. Piccolo covered the kids' eyes forcing their heads into his shoulders as they passed by the grisly remains.  
  
Kihann came to a halt at an intersection looking confused as her head whipped back and forth. "Which way, which way, oh shit which way?"  
  
"What do you mean which way? Don't you know the way out?" Piccolo bellowed over the alarm. He was sweating with exertion, it having been three months since he'd had to exercise, and then with holding two more hot bodies, it was not a fun jaunt for the namek.  
  
Kihann glanced back irritably at Piccolo. "They didn't exactly let me out for a jog around the damn block you know!"  
  
Both kids pointed to the left side and spoke simultaneously, "That way is out, we smell fresh air." And fell silent once more. Kihann and Piccolo blinked at the kids both a bit more than creeped out by them, but shook it off.  
  
"Okay left it is." Piccolo started down that direction, when they heard an explosion behind them.  
  
"Trask's loose." Kihann needlessly pointed out. "You run out, there should be someone waiting for you, I'll hold off Trask as long as I can."  
  
"Are you insane? He'll kill you Kihann!" Piccolo stared at her incredulously.  
  
"Do you have a better idea?! You can't exactly take him on yourself Piccolo!" Kihann countered back, "You're power won't be back for probably a good three or four days, and there's not a snowballs chance in hell that you could fight him one on one! He's got nearly the same abilities as you or I do, if not more!"  
  
"Mother is right, you can't fight." A quiet voice reasoned, the boy Piccolo realized. "We can sense your power level and it's far too low for you to be effective in a battle. Let mother handle this fight father, she is capable."  
  
Piccolo struggled internally with the choice he faced; leave Kihann alone to fight the symbiotic mad man or risk getting all of them killed. He gave Kihann a pleading look before she leaned up, kissing Piccolo firmly and shoving him towards the door. ~Ei ylantai neit Piccolo~  
  
Piccolo staggered back towards the door and to the light, his expression one of anger and sorrow. ~Ei ylantai neit, Kihann~ He turned and ran as he heard Trask screaming in rage, feeling the ground and walls shake around him; plaster and lighting fell from the ceiling as he felt Kihann power up to face Trask head on. ~Ei ylantai neit~  
  
Piccolo felt more than heard the clash of power between Kihann and Trask as they met, the backlash throwing him through the door; curling up he protected himself and the children as best he could, rolling with the blow, and back onto his feet.  
  
Coming to a stop, he came face to face with roughly a battalion of armed soldiers and tanks. The children stared at the men with mild interest, while Piccolo stood there tensely. A voice boomed over a loud speaker, "Halt! You are under arrest for theft of Military property! Please place the children on the ground and put your hands in the air! I repeat you're under arrest."  
  
"You have got to be kidding me." Piccolo muttered through clenched teeth. The ground shook once more, and he knew that Kihann and Trask were giving it their all in the complex; glass shattered spraying Piccolo, the kids and those closest to them with shards, the sonic boom blowing out windows for a good two block radius.  
  
"Honestly, one would think this planets military would have better things to do than to harass useless namek." A grating voice carried on the wind, as the boom died out leaving silence. Everyone focused their attention to the roof of the building a few soldiers yelping and running off as they saw who it was.  
  
Vegeta stood on the edge of the roof, arms folded over his chest and body adorned in the typical saiyajin armor. Next to him stood Goku, then Goten, and Trunks; on the other side of Vegeta stood Gohan, all of them wearing the same saiyajin armor as Vegeta's, and all of them looking ready to take on the universe. Vegeta tilted his head and smirked as he continued, thoroughly enjoying being in the spot light. "You little bastards have a tendency to forget that this planet is teeming with alien life forms. Some of us are just more obvious than others. Now, I suggest letting the Namek go, with a fight preferably, its been a while since we've had anything to kill."  
  
The grin Vegeta gave those looking on was enough to make even Piccolo shudder. No wonder Frieza used him for intimidation factor. He thought in amazement, gaining a new level of respect for the prince.  
  
As if on cue the group of saiyajins jumped from the roof to form a shield around Piccolo and the kids; Gohan glancing back and grinning to his former teacher and glancing to the kids he held, "I can't wait to hear about this."  
  
Piccolo smirked and backed up a step, he knew that it was best to let the group handle the situation. The gathered military opened fire on the group, thinking they could kill everything, the saiyajins all powering up, created a shield that rendered the bullets useless.  
  
"Try not to kill them! They're only following orders guys!" Goku's voice rang out over the din of gun fire. "Just go for their weapons and try to keep casualties to a minimum!"  
  
Piccolo watched as Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, and Goten bolted off to take on the military, the younger boys teamed up to destroy the tanks, Goku and Vegeta busied themselves with disarming the front line and then working their way back. Most by now had run off not wanting to take on four saiyajins.  
  
Gohan meanwhile hung back, protecting Piccolo and the children. "Piccolo, that girl you were with, she came to all of us in a dream, where is she?"  
  
"Kihann's inside; she's dealing with the bigger threat." Piccolo set the kids down, using his own body as a shield. "We're going to have to get out of here soon; I know you can feel the power building up."  
  
Gohan nodded and glanced to the kids, then glanced behind Piccolo exclaiming; "DENDE!"  
  
Piccolo whirled to see the guardian grab the kids and give a grin to the group before taking off. "I got them! They'll be up on the Lookout, go on and do your jobs! I'll be up there waiting to heal!" And Dende was gone before anyone could respond.  
  
Piccolo grunted shaking his head. "Anyone she didn't summon?"  
  
Gohan grinned hugely and shrugged, not bothering to look behind him as he back fisted a soldier attempting to sneak up on him, the man crumpling to the ground out cold. "Well if it makes you feel better, she didn't summon the media?"  
  
"Hah, hah, hah." Piccolo snorted. As he drew in a breath to retort an explosion threw everything within a one hundred foot radius back. The building trembled, cement and brick crumbling, and shattering. Light broke through the jagged remains, making the building look like some bizarre disco ball gone awry. The very air around them seemed to be sucked in; as if the building had inhaled and was getting ready to scream in rage.  
  
And then it did. The building blew out, releasing energy that none had felt before. Anything not ki protected was destroyed; Vegeta, Goku, Gotenks, Gohan and Piccolo were all thrown back; Piccolo protected by Gohans ki. Bricks, mortal, steel beams and debris suddenly became deadly projectiles killing those that had survived the blast instantly, everyone and everything else was buried in debris.  
  
Piccolo struggled beneath a collapsed wall, needing to get back to fresh air and to see what had happened, who had possibly won. Kihann let it be Kihann who won this. He thought desperately. Let her have taken out Trask in that blast.  
  
When he'd managed to claw his way up and out from under the wall what he saw would remain burned in his mind for the rest of his life.  
  
Kihann and Trask hovered in the air, both bodies glowing with energy, Trask's body aglow with a bloody red color, Kihann's a pearl white. Their bodies were wrapped around each other in a nightmarish parody of a lovers embrace. The air around them crackled and hissed, Piccolo and the others still conscious noticed that the fighters' ki had formed a barrier around one another, effectively cutting them off from the others; it was a fight only one could win, and no one could help.  
  
Trask's hands were wrapped around Kihann's neck, trying to strangle, the woman's arms wrapped around Trask's shoulders, trying to bring her face to his, as if she was seeking a kiss from him. Her body glowed more brightly, nearly drowning out the blood color of Trask's. The man screamed in rage and fury, his legs attempting to wrap around Kihann's mid-section, except she beat him to it. She wrapped her own legs around Trask's body, holding on for dear life.  
  
Piccolo's eyes widened in horror as Kihann's lips connected with Trask's own mouth, and he sensed her powering up for an attack he'd used on several occasions; the attack he knew, you summoned up ki and expelled it from ones mouth. Except at such close proximity it'd kill not only Trask, but Kihann as well.  
  
"KIHANN NO!" Piccolo lunged for Kihann, even though he knew there was no way to reach her, no way to get to her in time to stop her. He summoned up what little ki his body still had and attempted to launch himself for her.  
  
Two bodies tackled him at the same time, Gohan and Goku both knowing what he was going to do. Goku's voice spoke to him from a distance. "Let her do what she has to Piccolo! She knew what she had to do to make this end, and we can't help her, not with that shield around them both!"  
  
He didn't see her die; but he felt it. He felt that bond they'd developed blink away like a dying star. Her presence, her life force shined brilliantly in the night sky and in his mind, as she and Trask ceased to exist, Trask's voice bellowing in dying rage before ceasing completely. Kihann's life force lit up the darkness, and then slowly faded. Piccolo heard in his mind and heart before she ceased to exist ~Ei ylantai neit~  
  
The backlash of power flooded through Piccolo and for a moment it felt like his entire body was on fire, leaving his nerves feeling like they were alive with a thousand volts of electricity, and his mind screaming for relief. That was until the darkness consumed him, leaving him floating in a void of darkness, the void where Kihann had been. 


	11. Bring me to life 11

Piccolo stood on the edge of the Lookout, staring at the turning world below. His thoughts dark and heavy, it had been a year since Kihann had died, a year he'd had  
  
The twins were inside studying or were supposed to be at any rate. In that year they had gotten to know each other, Piccolo learning from the children almost as much as they learned from him. He'd given each of them a name, one he thought fitting for not only their personalities, but as well as how they had come to be.  
  
The boy he called Tir; the name he'd found in a book during his stay in the library all that time ago. The name had come from a book about runes, the definition of Tir in its name form meant victorious warrior. And Tir lived up to that name in force. Alone he could nearly take on the younger fighters such as Goten and Trunks; and had beaten Gohans daughter quite easily in an impromptu tournament just a short few weeks ago. He was competitive and not very quick to anger, but when mad he was nearly unstoppable.  
  
The girl he'd named Sigel; the name came from the same book and held nearly the same meaning as her brothers' name. Sigel however was more strategic than her brother when it came to fighting; she thought out her attack before she executed it; as to where Tir made up a strategy as he went, learning as he fought; figuring out what worked and what didn't.  
  
Together Sigel and Tir were unstoppable as a team. Piccolo had tested them both after Kihann's death. At the age of five both were highly intelligent, completely capable of holding their own in battle and more than willing to take on the world. But even at the age of five they were still typical children.  
  
"Give that back Tir or I'll tear your arms off!" Sigel's voice echoed in the hallway of the Palace, her threat making Piccolo smirk.  
  
"It wasn't yours to begin with Sigel! You stole it from my room!" Tir's growl echoed back.  
  
"I found the book first and I was looking at the pictures before you came along and ripped it out from under me stupid head!"  
  
"You're a Whiny, bratty, pain in the butt girl!"  
  
"Pig faced monkey brain!"  
  
"Stop acting like a human!"  
  
"Stop acting like a Saiyajin!"  
  
Piccolo rolled his eyes turning to break up the scuffle; both the kids throwing punches and kicks. Grabbing Tir by one arm and Sigel by the other he let them dangle for a moment, waiting for them to calm down. When both had stopped squirming Piccolo looked between the two. "Finished?"  
  
Both of them broke into a cacophony of complaints, whining and general bawling, accusing each other of some thing they did, (or didn't do that they were supposed to) and again Piccolo waited until they had calmed down, both sniffling and wiping teary eyes with their free arms.  
  
Dende watched from the balcony chuckling faintly and shaking his head. He'd watched Piccolo change in the year that had followed. When Goku and Gohan had brought Piccolo up to the look out after their escape, Piccolo had been despondent, nearly catatonic with grief over losing Kihann. They had tried to gather the dragon balls to summon up Shenlon for a wish, but they'd been used by someone else, and had been rendered useless for a year. It had taken Dende, the twins and Gohans help to bring Piccolo around, telling him it was only a year to wait.  
  
And the year was up. He watched as Piccolo calmed the kids, told them that they needed to be on their best behavior. They were generally good kids, they just had their moments like all children did when they needed reminded to behave. Dende recalled many instances as a kid that he and Cargo had gotten into trouble. Dende focused his attention from the three to the energy signatures he sensed approaching. Just in time. He thought with amusement.  
  
Goku and Gohan both appeared over the lip of the Lookout carrying a duffle bag each. Gohan crouched to accept the kids' hugs and Goku patted Piccolo on the back commenting on how well he looked.  
  
Piccolo smiled faintly to Goku and shrugged slightly; "I don't need to train anymore, these two keep me on my toes enough."  
  
Goku laughed and nodded agreeably. "Yeah I know that feeling! Pan keeps me busy with all sorts of stuff."  
  
Tir and Sigel meanwhile were clamoring for treats they knew that Goku and Gohan gave them, and immediately head dove into the second duffle bag that Gohan had carried up with him. Content with their prizes for the moment, both kids sat off by themselves quiet for the time being.  
  
"Hey Piccolo, you sure you want to do this? A year is a long time for someone to be gone, and well." Goku trailed off uncertainly as he handed over the duffle bag he'd brought up.  
  
Piccolo took the bag and turned away, heading to the center of the Lookout. "I have to do it Goku. It's too important to me, and to the kids to not do it."  
  
Goku's expression was sympathetic; he'd known what it was like to watch loved ones die. But still. "Being dead a year can change a person Piccolo. She may not feel the same way."  
  
Piccolo's eyes narrowed and he snapped back irritably; "Did Chichi's feelings change for you when you died?"  
  
"Well, no. but it did affect our relationship quite a bit." Goku glanced to Gohan who kind of shrugged as if to say 'what did you expect?' and looked to the twins for a distraction from the conversation.  
  
"I have to do this Goku. There's no other option; Tir, Sigel its time." Piccolo called over to the kids, as he crouched, placing the dragon balls in the proper order.  
  
Both kids dropped what they were doing, immediately coming to Piccolo's summons. Both of them looking very serious, Tir's hand grasping Sigel's. "We're ready father." Their voices combining into one, making Goku and Gohan shiver slightly.  
  
Piccolo nodded and stepped back, the children's voices as one summoned up Shenlon, the sky darkening, and storm clouds gathered as the Dragons energies threw the atmospheric conditions into chaos temporarily.  
  
Shenlon gazed impassively at those gathered, giving his usual demand of as to why he was summoned. The children's voices combining eerily shouted; "We wish for the body of Kihann to be restored here on the Lookout!"  
  
The dragon was silent for a long moment, and then nodded once. "It is granted. What is your second wish?"  
  
"We wish for life to be restored to Kihann, for her to be returned to us alive and healthy, restored as she was before death."  
  
The dragon nodded once more, his eyes glowing with power. "It is done. I return to my slumber."  
  
Goku, Gohan, Piccolo and Dende all watched as the dragon disappeared, then watched as the balls shot off the Lookout in seven different directions, to be found once more in a years time, the sky clearing once more.  
  
The children stood there blinking, not quite understanding what had just happened. They both latched onto each of Piccolo's leg, quietly waiting to see what would happen next.  
  
The silence stretched into eternity. There was no Kihann to be seen, and Piccolo wondered if maybe the Dragon had made some sort of mistake, his stomach doing flip flops as nervousness and anger started to set in. The children looked around, blinking; waiting for something to happen, Piccolo rested a hand on each of the children's shoulders, comforting them. Goku and Gohan stood there uncomfortable, but not willing to leave until they saw the whole thing out.  
  
~Ei ylantai neit, Piccolo.~ a soft, familiar, and amused sounding voice spoke up from behind them.  
  
Everyone spun to face the owner of the voice. The children shrieked with joy as Piccolo let go of them and moved to wrap his arms around Kihann. "We weren't sure if he'd really had granted the wish."  
  
All four of them held onto each other in silence for a long time, the family of namek's huddled around one another, Kihann touching each of them murmuring her love and how much she'd missed them.  
  
Gohan, Goku and Dende watched from a respectful distance as the family spoke to each other quietly; catching Kihann up on what she'd missed, and as Kihann explained her experience in the after life.  
  
"They won't be happy up here for long." Dende commented quietly. "There's only so much someone can do before they grow bored and restless; and they can't go below, not now, not after all they've been through."  
  
Gohan cleared his throat and shrugged. "Bulma and I fixed that problem; they shouldn't be bothered again by anyone."  
  
Dende raised a brow ridge and looked to his long time friend. "Is that so?"  
  
Gohan nodded and reached into his back pockets withdrawing four blue books. "Piccolo, could you and your family come here for a second? I kind of have a second surprise."  
  
Goku grinned as the four approached excited to see how they would react to the news. Dende looked on in live curiosity.  
  
"What is it Gohan?" Piccolo glanced to the books warily, Tir and Sigel both snuggled up in Kihanns arms, Piccolo's own arm around Kihanns waist.  
  
Gohan laughed faintly as he caught Piccolos look. "Don't worry Piccolo, they won't explode. Bulma and I we got together, and we talked to some people we knew. People with power and influence; when the university had found out that the military had murdered Murashi and his entire family, they weren't happy, and when the science community had found out that the military were using people for genetic experiments they were further unhappy. Unhappy people have a tendency to go to the media, and that's something the military and the President didn't want. Those that had been responsible for Kihann's and yours ordeal were dealt with, those that had survived anyways. So, to placate not only the science community, but the University, and to keep our group of friends from wreaking havoc; Bulma pointed out that the military and the President owed us for saving their planet a dozen times."  
  
Gohan handed the four booklets over to Piccolo and Kihann. "Inside are your citizenships. Meaning you all have the rights and responsibilities of anyone living on this planet. The President said that he owed you that much; that he recalled you fighting along side us numerous times. Each of you is considered citizens of the planet earth."  
  
Kihann looked at Gohan and blinked a few times. "You mean that no one can touch us?"  
  
Gohan shook his head. "No, they can't illegally detain you for any reason. They can't use you for any reason what so ever. You are protected by the constitution, as humanoids living on this planet."  
  
Piccolo didn't know what to say. All his life he'd considered himself a native of this planet, most of his life he'd fought to protect his planet as fiercely as he'd protected his home world once, and only now after all these years the people of this planet had accepted not only him, but his family as well. He cleared his throat, everyone looking to him as he began to speak. "We'd thought about going back to New Namek after Kihann had come back; knowing that we'd still be wanted and hunted. But this changes everything. Thank you."  
  
Gohan and Goku grinned and shrugged. "It was the least we could do Piccolo." Goku piped up. "We owed you at least this much if not more, you never had to help me out or come around to our side."  
  
Piccolo flushed, and snorted, not liking how this moment was turning mushy. "Yeah well, maybe someday I'll get my chance."  
  
Gohan and Goku chuckled. "We gotta get going guys, I assume you'll come down sometime and visit us?"  
  
Kihann nodded. "Of course, Piccolo still owes me a trip to the beach!"  
  
The two saiyajins laughed, Piccolo shaking his head; it would be typical of her to recall his promise to show her earth. Well he thought, at least now I can.  
  
The family of namek's waved and bid Gohan and Goku a good trip home as they watched them fly off. Dende had long ago vanished into the depths of the lookout; leaving the family alone.  
  
Kihann shivered in the cool breeze, glad to be alive and with her family; never having thought that this would be how her life would turn out. She reflected on how her life had been and how much they had all gone through; but in the end it had been worth it.  
  
"Think we should go home?" Piccolo's voice murmured softly in her ear, his arms slipping around her sides.  
  
"Go home? I thought this was home." Kihann rested the back of her head against his chest, leaning against him; Tir and Sigel both standing in front of Kihann, hugging each of Kihann's leg, both silent and content to just be with both of their parents.  
  
"Yes, go home. Tir, Sigel and I have had a place ready for your return for some time now."  
  
Kihann closed her eyes and smiled, nodding. "Yes, let's go home."  
  
Both adults gathered a child each, sending their goodbye's to Dende, who wished them the best of luck and safe journey; and a happy life; Piccolo and Kihann nodded and stepped off the Lookout, and towards their new home.  
  
Epilogue-  
  
*Four Months Later*  
  
Piccolo sat on the clump of grass, under the large oak tree and caught his breath letting aching muscles relax, and enjoying the stiff breeze that held a hint of thunderstorms to come. Rain suited him fine, he enjoyed the smell of rain, liked how it washed away the dirt and grime the summer winds brought with them during the hottest month of the year.  
  
Tir and Sigel had gone inside some time ago at their mothers bidding; both complaining vocally about having to come inside to get ready for bath and bed, but both parents knew that neither child minded it too much.  
  
Piccolo enjoyed the sparring sessions with both children, they gave him a work out, and in turn he gave them valuable fighting tips. The kids had heard that a new tournament would be starting up in a years time, and both badly wanted to compete.  
  
Piccolo laced his fingers behind his head, resting against the tree staring up at the dusky sky. He felt more than heard Kihann's approach; silently she sat down next to him, resting her head against his arm. "What are you thinking about?"  
  
"I was just thinking about how much has changed since I sat in this spot a little more than a year and a half ago."  
  
"Such as what?" Kihann's sapphire eyes gazed up at the one she loved.  
  
"Just thinking about at almost the same time last year I was sitting here alone, not having a clue you existed; not having any idea just how dead I'd been inside for so long. How much I had denied myself, and in turn denying others as well. I never wanted anyone close to me, I didn't want anyone to get close for the simple fact that with the life I'd had, had created for myself there was too much to lose if I had opened myself up to others. Before I had met you, I had nothing, had wanted nothing. I was content to stay in my universe that I had made on my own. And then the dream you'd sent me changed everything; it woke me up."  
  
Kihann sighed softly; it was rare that Piccolo ever spoke of his feelings, or of himself. It was a rare thing indeed, and any time he did share anything about himself she listened with rapt attention. "Do you regret it?"  
  
"If I had to go back to the months in the lab, had to live through it all again; had to repeat that part of my life for the rest of eternity, I would." Piccolo spoke softly, not looking at Kihann, not needing to.  
  
"Why?"  
  
The response was a few moments in coming; they both watched the sun set behind storm clouds before Piccolo spoke. "Because I would know that the end result would be the same; knowing that I'd finally have something in the end that I never realized I was missing. You made me feel real Kihann, you brought something inside me to life that I never realized existed; you saved me from the nothing I had become. You and the kids both gave me something I unconsciously longed for."  
  
Kihann smiled, her eyes closed. "I'm glad then, glad that I made the right decision. I love you Piccolo, and I know you love me too even though you hate saying it. I know you're a very private and secretive person and that's okay with me. As long as I can feel you, feel you next to me and know what you're emotions are; I'm happy. You saved me; your feelings saved me from that darkness that had become my life as well."  
  
Without a word Piccolo scooped Kihann up in his arms and headed off into the starry sky. Kihann blinked curiously at Piccolo. "Where are we going?"  
  
"Someplace special, private, a place for us to be alone; I want to thank you in a very special way." Piccolo kept his eyes ahead of him, not giving any indication of what he'd had in mind.  
  
"Thank me; for what?" Kihann smiled shyly, a flush coloring her cheeks.  
  
"For bringing me to life."  
  
~Fin~ 


End file.
